


True Selves

by LokasennaHiddleston



Category: Code Geass
Genre: Angst, Dark, Fluff and Angst, Inspired by a Trailer, M/M, Masochism, Mental Health Issues, Minor Character Death, Multi, Multiple Selves, Post-Zero Requiem, Sadism, Self-Hatred, Self-cest, Some Humor, Suzakus and Lelouchs abound, Torture, What Have I Done
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-08-10 23:45:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 35,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16464587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LokasennaHiddleston/pseuds/LokasennaHiddleston
Summary: Two years after the Zero Requiem, a Geass user kidnaps Suzaku in an attempt to resurrect Lelouch and enslave his soul. It doesn't quite work out as expected... Instead, Suzaku somehow ends up in a recreation of Jeremiah's orangery, with three more versions of himself and four Lelouchs. This... could be a problem.





	1. Reborn

**Author's Note:**

> So I think we probably all know that, in one way or another, I was going to do this. The trailer just broke my brain (as my change in image pointed out) and I could not help myself. I'm a horrible, horrible person for posting something new while I still have so many stuff ongoing, but on the bright side, I do have some more of it already written. Don't worry! The update for Trinity will also be coming soon!

The first thing Suzaku became aware of when he cracked his eyes open was the pain. Every single bit of him hurt. His head was pounding. He felt a stabbing ache in his side when he tried to move, and his wrists hurt so much it almost overshadowed everything else.

He forced himself to ignore every single bit of it, instead trying to figure out what had happened. As far as he could recall, he had been in his knightmare fighting off the mysterious version of the Geass Order that had been trying to attack Nunnally when a strange, massive mech with specs that widely outclassed his own had showed up. He'd tried to compensate for it with his Geass, like he had done in the battle with Kallen, two years back, on the Damocles.

After that, everything was a blank. The 'Live on' command must've taken over, but in this instance, it had apparently not been enough. Maybe it was just because of the strength of this mysterious foe, or because Suzaku no longer had Lelouch to conveniently take over the world and give him time to make his escape. Either way, whatever had happened had allowed his opponent—or the man's accomplices—to capture him.

Well, wasn't this just fucking peachy?

"Welcome back, Zero," a voice said from the darkness. "Or should I say, Suzaku Kururugi."

Suzaku took a deep breath and looked up. He hadn't been called by that name in years. Since the night before the Requiem. Although, he supposed that technically the Requiem itself counted, when he'd held a dying Lelouch in his arms, and Lelouch had delivered his final command.

He had still been Suzaku Kururugi then. Now, there was only Zero.

"Don't call me that," he said.

His voice was raspy and croaky, and the words came out weak. He hated it with a passion, and hated it even more that it caused the man to laugh. "And what else should I call you? It's who you are."

Maybe, maybe not. But regardless, Suzaku refused to answer to it. He had accepted that Geass, and had lived with it for years.

"I am just Zero."

"Mhmm."

The man finally stepped into the light, and Suzaku could finally get a good look at his face. He had green hair—although the shade was different from C.C.'s, thank God—which was held back by a strange metal band, and his teal eyes seemed to stare straight into Suzaku's soul.

"I think we both know that's a lie," the man continued. "But then, you've always been a liar. Wearing masks even before you took up the one of Zero."

Suzaku clenched his jaw to keep himself from spouting an automatic defense. The man wasn't precisely wrong, but that didn't mean Suzaku had to give him the satisfaction, in any way.

His reaction didn't seem to impress the stranger. "Ah, what a fierce glare. Honestly, it would almost scare me. If you weren't so helpless."

Helpless. It was true. He couldn't move a muscle. Whatever contraption he was strapped into blocked any way of escape he could've had. He could feel the Geass buzzing at the back of his mind, screaming at him to try something, anything, but there simply was no place to go.

Instinctively, he jerked on his bindings and hissed in pain when the action jolted his previous injuries. Blood dripped down his barely clothed arms. He must've done that before then, although he had no memory of it.

"Tsk, tsk," the stranger said in mock disappointment. "You really shouldn't hurt yourself so. It's such a shame, to damage such a marvelous specimen as yourself."

Suzaku ignored the comment. "Who are you? What do you want with me?"

"My name is Shestal. As for what I want... Well, to tell you the truth, as fascinating as you may be, you are not truly the one I'm interested in."

As he spoke, the lights in the room flared a little brighter. It allowed Suzaku to see something he hadn't originally noticed.

Mere feet away from him, there was a strange, metalic capsule. Shestal pressed a few buttons on its side and it opened with a hiss. A slab emerged from inside, and on it, was the very familiar form of Suzaku's very dead best friend and emperor, Lelouch vi Britannia.

Suzaku's anger at his own situation faded to the back of his mind at the sight. "What... What have you done to him? How do you have him?"

It was Lelouch, no doubt about it. He would have known that pale, slender body anywhere. After all, he'd been the one to set Lelouch to rest after... after.

It hadn't been in the white emperor robes, he remembered. Lelouch hadn't made any requests on how he wanted his body disposed of, but Suzaku had chosen to change him anyway. He'd dressed Lelouch in his Ashford uniform. The same clothes he'd been wearing when they had first reunited. The same clothes he'd been wearing when they'd been happiest, together. The same clothes he'd been wearing when, against all odds and inexplicably, they had taken over Britannia, side by side.

He had dared to kiss those slack lips just once. Even if he and Lelouch had never been lovers—he'd never dared—maybe a part of him had stupidly hoped that it would bring Lelouch back, like in Sleeping Beauty. True love, and all that. After all, Geass could do anything, and apparently, the witch was immortal. Or something.

It had been only a fanciful dream and a stupid impulse, and it had not worked. Maybe Geass simply didn't respond to Suzaku, or maybe there had been too much hatred between him and Lelouch. Either way, Lelouch's lips had stayed still and cold, and Suzaku had hated it, hated that he had been the cause for that stillness, hated that he'd been so useless and stupid and unable to find a better solution.

And so Suzaku had buried him, and with Lelouch, he had buried his heart and his weakness. No matter how much he cared about Nunnally, he would never love her the way he had Lelouch. With his emperor gone, he truly had become Zero—a faceless man dedicated to justice alone.

And now, here Lelouch was again, impossibly untouched by time. His chest was even unmarked where Suzaku's sword—the blade of Zero—had pierced it. It also wasn't moving. Despite his presence here, Lelouch was very obviously still dead.

So... How? Why... What did Shestal want? What was this about, truly?

"I'm a great admirer of Lelouch vi Britannia," Shestal explained, as if hearing Suzaku's thoughts. "It truly was such a shame that he decided to remove himself from the world so soon."

He approached the motionless Lelouch and caressed his cheek. "So beautiful. Almost too beautiful, wouldn't you agree?" His hand traveled over Lelouch's bare chest, massaging his nipples in a parody of an erotic caress. "Pure perfection."

This body in front of Suzaku was nothing but a simulacrum. It had to be. It was not the body Suzaku had buried. It was just a lie. That much, Suzaku could tell.

Even so, the sight of what Shestal was doing still felt like a violation of everything Lelouch had been.  "Don't touch him," Suzaku snarled, struggling against his bindings. "Stop!"

"And if I refuse?" Shestal asked, laughing. "What are you going to do about it, Suzaku Kururugi? You're helpless, remember?"

Suzaku shook in his shackles, wanting nothing more than to rip the man's throat out with his teeth. "Oh, don't be so angry," Shestal told him, visibly unimpressed. "I'm truly here to do you, and the world a favor."

Suzaku doubted that very much. In fact, he didn't care about what lies and mind games Shestal was going to spout at him. As soon as he got out of these chains, he would tear the man apart, slowly and painfully.

Before he could figure out a way to make that happen, Shestal decided to throw yet another curveball at Suzaku. "You want him back, don't you?"

"Back?" Suzaku repeated dumbly. What the hell was Shestal talking about now?

"I can do it, you know," the man drawled. "I can bring him back."

"Impossible," Suzaku breathed out. "He's dead." By Suzaku's own hand, no less.

"Nothing is impossible. I'd think that you, of all people, should know that. After all, you watched Lelouch vi Britannia will God itself into compliance."

That he had, although to this day, Suzaku did not understand the enormity of what Lelouch had managed to accomplish. Maybe it had been then that he'd realized just how much he could never compare to his friend. A true king. The king—the emperor—Suzaku had killed, for their vow.

It had been so difficult to fulfill it, to go through with his part of the deal. But Lelouch... Lelouch had wanted to die. Suzaku had known that, had seen it in his eyes. He'd been so tired, the cross he'd had to bear too heavy, crushing him. Suzaku had thought that the Requiem would not only give the world a second chance, but also give Lelouch peace.

But now, here was this man, disturbing that, mocking it, mocking their promise. And the worst thing was that he himself could not deny the fact that Shestal was right.

"He can live again," Shestal said, latching onto Suzaku's obvious weakness. "You can see him open his eyes once more. Hear him say your name. Hold him. Hear his heartbeat."

Oh, God. The imagery Shestal was conjuring seemed to reach out into Suzaku and squeeze. Suzaku could see it, so very easily. He could see Lelouch's beautiful eyes, so warm, yet so fierce. Lelouch's voice rang out in his ears, as if Lelouch truly was speaking to him, at this exact instant.

He could remember one of their last conversations so clearly, himself, holding the sword that would later be used in the Requiem, kneeling in front of Lelouch's resolve.

_"With this... We'll become Zero."_

_"Yes, Suzaku. We'll become nothing."_

_"And because of that, things will start anew?"_

_"Exactly. I'm counting on you, Suzaku!"_

_"Yes, Your Majesty!"_

Even then, there had been so much warmth in Lelouch, always, just for Suzaku. They had hurt one another so much, but in the end, they'd stood together, always two parts of a single whole. And Suzaku had selfishly hoarded that knowledge in his heart, every single stolen moment of a dream turned nightmare, every smile, no matter how tired and sad it had been. He'd clung to the memory of Lelouch's peaceful smile, the way he'd embraced death as Suzaku had been preparing himself to thrust the sword into his heart. When his nights had been haunted by the memory of Lelouch dying in his arms, he'd focused on that, and on his last vow.

But none of that changed how much he would have liked for things to be different, how much he would have wanted them to be able to find another way.

"He can live again," Shestal said once more.

More memories flashed through his mind. The two of them, as children, at the Kururugi shrine, with Nunnally. Reuniting seven years later, first in the Shinjuku tunnels, then at Ashford. All the laughter they had shared, before laughter had vanished altogether from their lives. The anger, betrayal, grief and death that had come after... Until he, at last, had accepted his destiny, just as Lelouch had, and he had become Lelouch's ally.

Lelouch's sword. His Knight of Zero.

Impossibly, even if those days had been filled of so much strife, Suzaku missed them.

He missed Lelouch so very badly. He wanted Lelouch back.

As the desire pulsed bright and fierce inside him, the machine he was strapped into lit up. For the first time, Suzaku realized it was in some way connected to the platform Lelouch was in.

Lelouch's body began to glow, and Suzaku immediately panicked. "What's happening? What are you doing?"

Shestal laughed. "Oh, I'm not doing anything. This is all you."

"Me?" Suzaku asked, his head starting to spin. "I don't... I don't understand."

"I could never bring Lelouch vi Britannia's soul back from the world of C. He's much too stubborn for that. But you... Yes, you are the only one whose call he would heed.

"I thought at first that it would maybe be his sister, but then I realized my mistake. No, it was always you, his greatest weakness, the only one he both loved and considered his equal, the only one he ever truly trusted, even when he knew he shouldn't.

"He will come back, because you want him to. Because your soul calls out for his. And you can't stop it.

"And when his soul returns, I will hold it in my hands, and Lelouch vi Britannia will belong to me. Just like he was always supposed to."

Suzaku tried to tell himself that Lelouch's return would not help them, that it would only lead to a disaster. He tried to convince himself that he didn't want Lelouch to be back.

But it was a lie, and as good as he'd been at denial, not even he could stop this. There was no longer anything he could do. The mechanism he was trapped in tightened further.  "Lelouch," he managed to whisper, one last time, not even knowing why.

Then, hot piercing fire coursed through Suzaku's veins and everything went black.

****

As Suzaku Kururugi went limp in the bonds that held him aloft, Lelouch vi Britannia's eyes snapped open. By his side, Shestal laughed.

"That's it. Come back. With you by my side, this world will be mine."

Of course, Shestal did not realize a very simple thing. Despite the power of his own Geass, he truly could not hope to control Lelouch vi Britannia, not even now, that he had been made flesh. He could not bend his memories and his soul to his will, not anymore.

Paradoxically, as much as he acknowledged Lelouch's power, Shestal did not understand that he could not truly cage it.

Lelouch did not truly see Shestal nor did he hear his words. The only thing that he saw was his knight, dangling in cuffs in front of him, looking dead. The only thing that he heard was Suzaku's last desperate plea, echoing in his mind, hidden in a simple word, in Lelouch's own name.

All of Shestal's preparations, everything he had so conscientiously set up beforehand, proved to be useless. The machine that had both made Suzaku Kururugi's command futile and extracted his fiercest desire from his soul started to break down.

Shestal stared at it in horror. "What? No... Impossible."

The irony of his own words escaped him. He didn't even have time to realize that he was contradicting the taunting comments he'd thrown in Suzaku Kururugi's face just minutes earlier. The room began to shake, the floor spliting neatly, as if cracked open by the invisible hands of a monster emerging from hell.

Shestal made a grab for Lelouch vi Britannia, but the moment he touched Lelouch's skin, nightmarish images exploded in his mind. He collapsed, paralyzed by the Geass he had sought to exploit.

He had known, of course, that the Demon Emperor was powerful. Bitu had told him, shown him the absolute perfection that was Lelouch. But Bitu had also said that Lelouch's psyche was broken, shattered by betrayal and guilt. With the help of Shestal's Geass and Bitu's special technology, he could be manipulated. His soul could be enslaved.

Clearly, they'd both been very wrong. They should have never done this. They should have never tried to resurrect Lelouch.

There was a massive explosion, and the whole compound was torn asunder, ripped apart under the force of the uncontrollable power of a man reborn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shestal and Bitu are new characters who will appear in the fourth movie. The quote of their conversation comes from the short story "Mutuality". Obviously, this is only a prologue and the multiples will come next chapter. Which I will post soon.


	2. Meetings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, here is the multiples chapter. Happy Halloween, with countless Lelouchs and Suzakus!

The second time Suzaku woke up, he was very clearly no longer in Shestal's facility. He opened his eyes to the sight of clear, blue skies, and felt no pain whatsoever.

Had he died? What had happened with Shestal and Lelouch?

A memory flashed through his mind.  _When his soul returns, I will hold it in my hands, and Lelouch vi Britannia will belong to me._

Dear God... Once again, he'd failed Lelouch. Shestal had managed to exploit Suzaku's selfishness, and now... Now, it was entirely possible that Lelouch's soul was at that bastard's mercy.

For a few seconds, the only thing Suzaku could do was sit there and helplessly hyperventilate. If he was right, if Shestal had managed to enslave Lelouch. The very thought was too repugnant to fathom.

His sole hope was that C.C. would come back and help. She had had a significant change of heart after the episode in the world of C with the Ragnarok Connection and had decided to help them despite the fact that Lelouch could not take her code or fulfill her wish. She loved Lelouch in her own way. She would not allow something like that to happen to him. Suzaku... Suzaku had to believe that.

At the same time, though, Suzaku had never been a quitter, or somewhat to sit idly by and do nothing. So after those few moments passed, he gathered the remnants of his composure.

He removed his mask—because it was useless right now—and allowed himself to take a deep breath. The air smelled nice, almost sweet. It was familiar, comforting, in a way very few things were as of late.

He took a good look around, and that was when he realized it. He was in something that looked alarmingly like Jeremiah's orange farm. What? Why? Why in the world would he be here?

Granted, the orangery was one of the few places where he could take off his mask and speak about Lelouch freely, but that was a mixed blessing. He visited Lelouch's grave when he had the chance, but that hurt too. He couldn't fathom why his afterlife would be a recreation of the place.

Seriously, why couldn't things be straightforward for once in his damn life... or death?

But there was no point in just standing here, bemoaning his failures and lost chances. He had to get moving and see if there was still something to salvage out of this disaster.

His chances of accomplishing anything at all were slim at best. He knew that even as he got up and started making his way through the orangery.

And yet, against all odds, it only took him a few minutes to find hope again. It happened so suddenly. He was walking up a path he didn't even remember existed when all of a sudden, he caught sight of a very familiar figure.

It was Lelouch, and he was idly poking a flower with something akin to confusion on his face. He looked just like Suzaku remembered him, dressed in his black Ashford uniform, and so beautiful it hurt.

Suzaku must have made some kind of noise, because Lelouch was drawn out of his careful scrutiny of the flower and looked up. His eyes widened upon seeing Suzaku. "Suzaku? Is that you?"

Suzaku nodded, too dazed to do much else. Almost instantly, Lelouch jogged to his side and hugged him. Suzaku hugged him back, because he couldn't not do it, couldn't keep himself from holding Lelouch close, as close as he possibly could.

Did this mean Lelouch's soul was safe? Maybe Shestal's plan to enslave Lelouch had failed. Lelouch always had been very stubborn and really, there was no guarantee that Lelouch would come back from the dead just because Suzaku wanted him to.

Relief exploded through Suzaku. Maybe it wasn't exactly what he had wanted to accomplish, but he'd take his blessings where he could find them. And really, at this point, as much as he'd wanted to keep his word to Lelouch and preserve the Requiem, he couldn't say he really regretted dying either.

He had done his best. Someone else could pick up the mask now that he was dead. He could stay here, be with Lelouch. Be at peace. Yes, this was for the best. This was perfect.

Oblivious to Suzaku's thoughts, Lelouch broke away from the embrace. "What is this place?" he asked. "Are we dead?"

"Uh... I don't know."

That wasn't true in the slightest. In fact, there was at least a 99% chance that they were, indeed, dead.

Lelouch must've guessed that too, despite Suzaku's vague response, because his face fell. "I'm so sorry, Suzaku," he said, tearing up slightly. "I... It was my fault those soldiers... Those soldiers attacked you. I made an oath to obliterate Britannia, and instead... Instead, I ended up getting you killed. For nothing."

He clenched his fists, hissing in something like helpless fury. "It's like a bad joke. Seven years. Seven years I wondered if you were alive or dead. I hoped. And then, when we're finally reunited, like we were always supposed to be... This... This is the result..."

Wait... What?

"I can't believe... Why would this happen? How could we... How could I... Nunnally..."

He was almost incoherent with rage and grief, and Suzaku could barely understand his words. Still, it was obvious that something was wrong in this picture.

He took hold of Lelouch's arm and squeezed it slightly, just enough to draw Lelouch's attention without causing him pain. "Lelouch? What's the last thing you remember?"

The words snapped Lelouch out of his furious trance. "What do you mean?" he asked. "The Shinjuku ghettoes, of course. Clovis's guard shot you down." He pressed his hand over Suzaku's rib, where his old injury had been. "Here. Don't you remember, Suzaku?"

Oh, yes, he remembered. Except that had been years back, before Zero, before Geass, before everything had gone so very wrong.

"Suzaku?"

Suzaku didn't have the chance to reply to the now concerned inquiry. The sound of a familiar voice reached their ears.

"Come now, don't be shy... You know you're interested."

"It's not that," another very familiar voice replied—and oh dear, this isn't good. "I just... I'm not really sure what... is happening..."

"We can find out later... once we take care of that..."

He and Lelouch shared a look, then, as one, rushed toward the source of the sound. It was a nearby clearing, and as soon as they stepped beyond the treeline, they were met with a rather... interesting sight.

It was... themselves—Suzaku and Lelouch—sort of wrestling on the grass. The fact that Lelouch was winning was weird enough, but that was probably just because Suzaku wasn't putting up much of a fight. Or rather, he was, but his struggles were getting more and more feeble as Lelouch sort of manhandled him in the desired position, nibbling on his ear and caressing his sides.

The second Suzaku yelped when Lelouch's hand wandered into indecent territory, and Suzaku—the original one—decided it was time to intervene. "Err... Excuse me, but it might be a good idea to listen to him."

The other Lelouch lifted his head and turned to look at Suzaku. He tilted his head like a confused kitten. The somewhat surprised expression was soon replaced by a smug smile. "Look at that. We have more participants for our game."

Now that Suzaku could see him better, he realized this second Lelouch was actually dressed as the Julius Kingsley version of him, eyepatch included. It was actually a little unnerving, and he froze, not knowing how to react at the sight.

Meanwhile, his other self looked at him and the Ashford uniform Lelouch and his eyes widened. "What? You can't be serious... What kind of weird dream is this?"

"Oh?" The Julius Kingsley Lelouch asked. "Do you have erotic dreams about me often then? Interesting."

Suzaku could have actually answered that and told him that he had, indeed, had plenty of erotic dreams about Lelouch, in various positions and involving various amounts of bondage, depending on the time of his life. Sexual attraction had never been the issue between him and Lelouch.

But the Julius Kingsley Lelouch did not actually wait for a reply. Instead, he wriggled around in the fallen Suzaku's lap, drawing a gasp out of Suzaku's other self.

Suzaku himself couldn't help but feel a little jealous. The Lelouch next to him had an entirely different opinion.

"Hey!" he protested. "Don't sexually assault him like that!"

"It's only sexual assault if he doesn't want it," the second Lelouch said. "And he wants it bad... Don't you... Suzaku?"

The fallen Suzaku whimpered. It was not precisely a 'no'. If anything, Suzaku knew it was a 'God, yes."

It was also kind of... hot. Honestly, if this was the afterlife, Suzaku couldn't really bring himself to complain.

On the other hand, he couldn't imagine why his consciousness would manifest a memory of Julius Kingsley, when the incident with the emperor brainwashing Lelouch still weighed of him years after the fact.

No, something more was going on here, and Suzaku knew he needed to put his foot down in this situation, if only because he had to figure out what the hell was going on.

He stalked up to the duo and picked the eyepatched Lelouch off of his other self. Clearly, the fallen Suzaku wasn't about to do it, since he was too busy thinking he was having an erotic dream about himself—in a Zero suit—and two Lelouchs.

"That's quite enough," he said.

The Julius Kingsley Lelouch pouted prettily at Suzaku. "Come now. No need to be so rough. Unless... You're into that sort of thing, in which case, I could be persuaded. If you ask nicely."

Suzaku took a deep breath and tried very hard to not think of Lelouch tied up and at his mercy. Which was... actually much harder than expected, since he hadn't slept with anyone in over two years,  Lelouch was just as gorgeous as he had always been, and there had always been regrets at missed opportunities between them.

No. Just, no. He had to figure out what had happened, damn it.

"Now is really not the time for that," he told the Julius Kingsley Lelouch.

"Well, if you want to be boring... But I'm willing to be patient." He threw their other selves a small smirk. "I wouldn't even mind sharing, as long as we can add my gorgeous pet to the mix."

The 'pet' in question spluttered, whereas the Ashford uniform Lelouch—who had at one point gone to the fallen Suzaku's aid—seemed torn between confusion, outrage, and something Suzaku was pretty sure he could identify as desire.

Suzaku suspected the Julius Kingsley Lelouch would've said something about it—he had a speculative expression on his face—but before the conversation could go any further, an angry cry reached their ears.

"Zero! Come back here!"

Well, fuck.

As Suzaku watched, a masked figure ran into the grove. He stumbled over a bush seconds after he came within view. He didn't have the time to recover, because a second man emerged from the foliage, his sword drawn.

It was, of course, Suzaku. He was dressed in the very familiar uniform of the Knight of Seven—the one Suzaku himself had worn during his service as a Rounds—and within seconds, he had immobilized the second figure against the ground.

Lelouch's mask fell as he struggled underneath Suzaku. Suzaku—err... the other, third Suzaku—snarled at him. "Lelouch," he hissed. "I've had enough of your tricks."

Suzaku decided that this was one exchange that he needed to interrupt far more than the eyepatched Lelouch's sexual harrassment of the fallen Suzaku. "I'm afraid that this particular one isn't his fault," he said. "Well, I don't think so, at least."

His other self looked up at him. Then, he looked at the younger Suzaku, who was still on the ground, and at the two other Lelouchs. The Julius Kingsley Lelouch arched a brow at him. "Well, hello there, handsome. Haven't seen you in a while."

"What the fuck," Knight of Seven Suzaku eloquently said. "This is some kind of twisted dream, isn't it?"

"A-ha!" Julius exclaimed. "There we go, with the dream again! Please, do elaborate. Any fantasies you'd like to share with the group? We're all open to suggestions."

Knight of Seven Suzaku stared at Julius Kingsley Lelouch. The other Lelouchs were conspicuously silent. Suzaku himself had no idea what to say to any of it.

He was almost grateful when the silence was broken by yet another voice. "Well, this is all very... quaint," a fourth Lelouch commented as he walked into the grove. He was wearing his emperor clothes, and by his side, another one Suzaku's selves stood by, scanning the area as if looking for enemies. "I don't suppose there's room for two more?"

****

Lelouch had gone through plenty of strange experiences in his life, including, but not limited to, facing the ghost of his mother in what amounted to a mechanism intended to destroy the world. He really had not thought his life/death could get any stranger.

Clearly, he'd been quite wrong. It appeared that somehow, four incarnations of both him and Suzaku had been created, in this strange, mysterious space, all of whom dated from a different time in their lives.

He was unsure how this could have occurred, but Geass could be used to manipulate both time and reality. In any case, the first thing he needed to do was to figure out who and what exactly these identities were.

So far, he could only make extrapolations based on their clothing. His other selves were dressed in his Ashford uniform, his Zero suit and his Julius Kingsley outfit, respectively. As for the Suzakus, one of them was wearing the same Zero suit Lelouch had entrusted him with. The others were all dressed in uniforms—every uniform of every knighthood Suzaku had ever had. Euphie's knight. The Knight of Seven. And the Knight of Zero, Lelouch's own knight, with whom he had met while on the way here.

But that only told him so much and it didn't answer all of his questions.

His knight was very confused and appeared to not remember anything past the battle from the Damocles. His first guess upon seeing Lelouch had been, "Did we lose on the Damocles?"

What did all the others remember?

Figuring this out would have probably been easier had all of the... Suzakus and Lelouchs been cooperative, but when had things in Lelouch's life ever been easy? If anything, he would've been surprised if their younger selves had agreed to work with him, just like that.

Suzaku's Knight of Seven personality was particularly crabby. It was a minor miracle he released the version of Lelouch he'd captured, and even after that, he glowered at them all like he wanted to reenact the Requiem on the spot.

Not a good thought to have, considering the circumstances.

"Look," Lelouch started, "I realize this is very confusing for most everyone here, but it does appear that, this in some way real. I'd like to propose that we set our own personal feelings aside and cooperate to find out what actually happened to trigger this phenomenon."

"I agree," the Suzaku dressed as Zero replied.

Everyone else was of the same opinion—except the Knight of Seven. The Lelouch dressed as Julius laughed at him. "You've been outvoted, Sir Kururugi. You're going to have to play along."

"Stop helping," Lelouch said to his younger self. "Let's focus on our priorities, yes?"

His other self agreed, although that didn't make Knight of Seven Suzaku less upset. "Fine then. Where do we start? What is this place? Is this related to Geass?"

"Geass?" the Lelouch dressed in the Ashford uniform repeated. "Is that the... contract that green-haired girl was talking about?"

Ah. Oh dear.

"I think perhaps... We should start with what the last thing everyone remembers."

It was a straightforward enough request, so despite all the confusion, all the Suzakus and Lelouchs complied.

For the purpose of convenience, they started with the Lelouchs.

He had already noticed that the manifestation of their Geass was different. The youngest Lelouch's power was in its incipience, so his explanation didn't come as much of a surprise. "I was in the Shinjuku ghettoes. I'd just come out of the tunnels with that green-haired girl when we were intercepted by a group of guards. She was shot trying to protect me. I thought I was going to die and then suddenly... I think she grabbed me. She offered me some kind of contract. That's it."

"I remember everything up to and including Euro-Britannia, as well as both our rather unpleasant meetings with our father," the Julius Kingsley Lelouch provided. Despite the somewhat vague phrasing, it was easy to understand what he meant. He only had memories until the moment his father had wiped his mind for the second time. His eye was covered by the eyepatch, but despite that, Lelouch knew that the Geass was already uncontrollable.

His third self understood the logic behind their second self's vagueness, as he simply said, "The Ragnarok Connection." It was unclear if he remembered killing their parents, but Lelouch decided it was not that relevant. As expected, this Lelouch had a Geass that had evolved to both eyes.

Lelouch himself didn't really want to explain his death, or the Zero Requiem, so instead, he turned toward the Suzakus. His avoidance of providing the explanation he himself had requested couldn't have gone unnoticed, but fortunately, his other selves let it go, and the only two Suzakus who didn't understand the reason went along with it despite their visible confusion.

"I was at the SAZ," the youngest Suzaku offered. "That green-haired woman from Shinjuku got out of Zero's knightmare and I went to help her. Then, nothing."

"I was in Tokyo, fighting Kallen. I was losing badly," Knight of Seven Suzaku said. "Her frame was much better than mine. I remember her coming at me with the claw, and then, it's a blank."

Right before the FLEIJA then.

Lelouch's own knight remembered the second battle with Kallen, on the Damocles, as he had first told him when they'd met here. That just left the final Suzaku, who shrugged. "Dying. An extremist in the Geass Order took me captive to bring you back."

An awkward silence fell. Apparently, there was only so much Suzaku was willing to avoid the elephant in the room, and  he had decided to rip off the proverbial band aid.

"So, am I correct in guessing that both... err... all of us are dead then?" the Julius Kingsley Lelouch asked.

"That is the safe assumption to make, but it still doesn't explain this phenomenon." Lelouch pursed his lips. "In any case, our respective memories do help a bit. It appears that each of our selves was created at key points in our lives, during some kind of incident with Geass. And yes, for the benefit of our younger selves, that is related to the contract I made with the green-haired girl. It is a sort of superpower that can be used for various purposes, including manipulating time and reality. Mine is called Absolute Obedience and, through it, I can order people to do whatever I wish."

"Oh," his youngest self said thoughtlfully. "So... That's how I escaped Shinjuku."

Lelouch nodded. "That's the main reason, yes."

"Is that also what happened to me at Narita?" the young Suzaku asked. "This... Geass thing?"

He didn't sound very happy about it, but then, Lelouch couldn't blame him for it. At the time, he'd only known that C.C. had been sending 'the pilot' shock images. The idea that said pilot had been Suzaku did not sit well with him, but really, he'd caused Suzaku far more pain in far worse ways.  "Sort of. That was C.C., the green-haired girl, using her own ability in an attempt to secure my escape."

"Because you're Zero," young Suzaku offered.

Lelouch didn't flinch away from the weight of the disappointment in Suzaku's green eyes. "Yes."

This was nothing compared to what would actually follow. Young Suzaku did not know that Euphie was dead, and young Lelouch did not know that he would be the one who had killed her.

Lelouch wondered what they were making of all this, how they were all assuming their deaths had come about. Young Suzaku would've probably tried to push in some other way, asked more, but Julius Kingsley Lelouch prevented that. "Now that we've gotten the obvious out of the way," he drawled, "I have a request. I don't know about you, but I find our multiple existence confusing. Before we go any further, I suggest we find separate names for ourselves. We can't all be Lelouchs and Suzakus. I'll start. I'll go by Julius."

Lelouch suspected the request was more or less a way to delay the unavoidable, give them all time to gather their bearings and make up some excuses, but that didn't mean he didn't appreciate it. He appreciated it a little less when the oldest Suzaku decided to be annoying about it. "I think the Suzakus are easy enough," he said. "I'm Zero. Then, there's the second oldest version of me, who is the equivalent of Lelouch's knight of One. He could be One. The Knight of Seven could be Seven and the younger version of me could be Eleven."

It was a practical suggestion. It was even logical and organized in a way that tended to appeal to Lelouch in most things.

Lelouch hated it with a passion.

"I'm not calling any version of you by a Britannian slur. Absolutely not. You're not a Number, you're a person. I don't care how much you hate yourself. You will not call yourself a Number in my presence."

Zero Suzaku closed his mouth with a snap. Meanwhile, Young Suzaku flushed, and Lelouch instantly knew what he was thinking. That an Eleven was exactly what he was.

Instantly, Lelouch felt horrible, for all of them. This was all his fault. He had been the one to turn the idealistic young man who'd still held some degree of hope in his heart to the soldier willing to sell his soul to any emperor who would help him achieve his goals. It was so hard to look at them, standing side by side, and know that he was the reason for the change.

True, Suzaku's older selves might have been more practical and more compatible with Lelouch's own ideas, but that didn't mean Lelouch didn't miss Suzaku's former smiles and the hope he had, against all odds, maintained, until Euphie's death.

"It's a moot point," Zero Lelouch pointed out, interfering in the exchange. "We have two Zeros here anyway. Both me and him."

Zero Suzaku nodded, acknowledging this was true. Lelouch considered possible options and finally suggested, "How about Zerozaku and Zerolouch? Since you're both obviously Zero, but different people."    

"Wonderful idea," Julius piped up. "Zerozaku even has an alliteration. Catchy."

All the Suzakus stared at Julius. Finally, Zerozaku replied, "I'm good with that option."

"I suppose Zerolouch is fine with me," his Lelouch counterpart agreed. Clearly, they had decided that some things just had to be ignored if they were about to maintain at least a modicum of sanity.

Knight of Zero Suzaku was just as practical, as he had used this discussion to figure out his own name. "I'm going to go with Lancelot," he offered out of the blue.

"Hey!" Knight of Seven Suzaku spluttered. "I wanted to be Lancelot!"

"Technically, I'm the one who got the Lancelot first," Young Suzaku protested, somewhat more sedately.

"Too bad," Knight of Zero told them. "I picked it first. Also, I have seniority, and I outrank you both."

He smirked and threw Lelouch a look. Lelouch couldn't have denied his knight anything. "Lancelot it is then."

"Well, now we know who your favorite is," Julius drawled. "Not that I blame you. I like your taste in uniforms. I think that's the only time I've ever see over-the-knee boots look manly on anyone."

"Anything looks manly on Suzaku," Lelouch replied calmly. "Although I suppose that blue puppy suit might have been an exception. And the sailor girl uniform."

"You're the one to talk," Lancelot teased him. "I distinctly remember your very vocal protests during the cross-dressing festival. You looked very cute in a dress."

"I did, didn't I?" Julius hummed thoughtfully. "Is roleplay something you're into then, Lancelot? Do, tell me more."

Lelouch coughed. "Hush, you. Logical conversation now, kinky sex games later."

"Promises, promises," Julius said with a sigh, but subsided, regardless. It was becoming quickly apparent that keeping Julius's shameless nature in control was something Lelouch would have to repeatedly do. But then, that wasn't very surprising, now, was it?

Lelouch took advantage of Julius's compliance to make his own choice. "Moving on. I'd go by Emperor Lelouch, I suppose, but that's a bit of a mouthful."

"I like it," Zerozaku said. "It's who you are, after all." He had apparently gotten over Lelouch's earlier smack down and was even smiling a little.

"I agree, Your Majesty," Lelouch's own knight—now dubbed Lancelot—added.

Lelouch's face heated. He would probably always get a kick out of hearing Suzaku calling him that. More than once, he'd entertained thoughts of what Suzaku would sound like if he called Lelouch that in bed. He'd never pushed for it, not wanting to make things more complicated between them than they'd already been, but that didn't mean the desire hadn't been there.

Also, said desire was apparently making a comeback, now of all times. Damn it. He'd just chastised Julius for not focusing on the matter at hand, and he was allowing Suzaku to distract him.

 Julius snickered, obviously completely aware of what Lelouch was thinking. Lelouch was very tempted to throw something at him.

"All right," he said, clearing his throat. "That only leaves our two younger selves, and the Honorable Knight of Seven."

"I can be... Lulu, I guess," young Lelouch offered tentatively.

He didn't seem incredibly keen on it, but then, he always had found the nickname embarassing. Still, considering the company young Lelouch was in, Lulu was sort of appropriate. Compared to everyone else, he was very innocent. He had yet to kill anyone. He had yet to be shattered and repeatedly put himself back together only because of the desire to finish his work.

Physically, they weren't too different, but mentally, they were entirely different people.

Lelouch acknowledged the new name with a nod. "Appropriate."

"I'll go with Sir Kururugi then," Knight of Seven Suzaku said, curling his lip slightly. "Kururugi, for short." He clearly didn't know what to think of all this and still resented Lelouch for the episode with Euphie. Lelouch wondered why he was going along with it anyway, why, despite his clear self-hatred, he was still trying to cooperate, in some way. Maybe it was because even at their worst, the two of them had always trusted each other.

Lelouch shot him a small smile. He still remembered this man dragging him in front of his father and holding him down while Charles wiped his mind, but he'd long ago dealt with any anger he might have felt over the incident. He'd take the olive branch in whatever shape it was offered. "Wonderful, Sir Kururugi. Which leaves us with your youngest self."

"I don't know," Suzaku replied in a daze, obviously still much too overwhelmed to come up with something. "I'm just... Uh... I don't know."

Julius made a cooing sound and wrapped his arm around his neck. "Aww. He's so cute. I vote we call him Suzu."

Lelouch wanted to weep. "He's not a puppy, Julius.  He needs to pick his own name."

"Suzu is fine," Young Suzaku replied quickly. "It goes with my Lelouch's option too."

Lulu's face flamed. He seemed to be torn between embarrassment and the desire to separate Julius from Suzu. The latter won out, and he somehow managed to wriggle his way between the two.

Julius seemed to indulge him, but didn't quite move away either, so instead the trio ended up in a kind of strange curled up embrace. Lelouch wondered if Julius truly was perverted enough to feel lust for himself. What was he thinking? Of course he was.

"All right, now that we have that settled... We need to figure out what actually happened and where we go from here. Zerozaku, any thoughts? Can you tell us more about what exactly happened before we woke up here?"

Their younger selves had other ideas.

"Actually..." Lulu said. "Would you maybe fill us in on everything, because we're still a little confused here? How exactly did I become an emperor again?"

"And how did I go from becoming Euphie's knight to... Zero?" Suzu asked. "And how in the world did you die?"

All the other Lelouchs and Suzakus flinched.

This was not going to be easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously, this chapter/story will contain references to Akito the Exiled. In Akito, Lelouch appears as Julius Kingsley, after having been brainwashed by the emperor to act as his strategist in Euro-Britannia. More on the Julius that appears in this fic next chapter.


	3. Heart to Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go, with the next update. Let me know if anything is confusing. As always, all comments are very much appreciated! :)

_Sir Kururugi_

Things went downhill quickly after the questions placed by their two, younger selves. Zerozaku sort of nominated himself to answer and simply said,  "Basically, what happened is that shortly after the skirmish in Shinjuku, Lelouch became a terrorist who went by the name of Zero in order to defeat Britannia. Meanwhile, I decided to change Britannia from within. I met his sister Euphie, who had similar ideals, and wanted to create a safe place where the Japanese could leave in peace. Unfortunately, it did not work out, as Zero felt threatened by her. He placed a Geass on her, leading her to order the mass murder of the Japanese. After this, he shot her, and she died in my arms with no memories of what she had done. A small mercy, I suppose."

Well, Suzaku supposed that was an accurate description. It was also not the most tactful one.

The moment he heard the latter sentence, Suzu went pasty white. "N-No," he stammered. "That can't be. You're lying."

He stumbled over his own feet, backing away from them in an uncoordinated manner. Suzaku understood exactly what he felt, as he could still remember the pain and shock he had experienced during those awful days.

"Unfortunately, it's true," Emperor Lelouch added, "although it's..."

He was probably intending to do some kind of damage control, but he never got the chance. Suzu didn't wait for him to finish the sentence. He turned on his heel and ran off, disappearing deeper into the orangery without waiting for a more elaborate explanation. Lulu stumbled after him, calling out his name.

"That went well," Julius said under his breath.

"As well as could be expected, I guess," Zerolouch offered with a sigh. "Although it certainly didn't help that you had to go dump it all on them like that."

Zerozaku grimaced. "Sorry. It's just that I... I don't even know... Those days seem so distant now."

He was frowning a little as he finished the sentence, and all of them let the topic drop. "Let's just... give them some space," Emperor Lelouch said. "We'll deal with it later. For now, let's see if we can figure out what actually happened."

That was one suggestion Suzaku could get on board with. If he had to spend too much time with the remaining two versions of himself and three Lelouchs, he would probably do something regretable and physically impossible.

Idly, he wondered if the 'Live on' Geass would keep him from murdering one of his other selves. He quickly pushed back the thought before it could fully form. It was not something he should probably be testing, considering the fact that he had no idea what he was dealing with here.

"Right," he said. "Since they've gone now, can you actually finish the story?"

Zerozaku nodded and went back to his practical report. Since the youngest and most vulnerable of them were gone, he quickly filled in all the blanks for everyone who had not been there during the most recent events of their life without bothering to censor himself much.

Suzaku did not know what to do with the fact that he'd apparently gone from trying to become the Knight of One for Charles, to attempting to assassinate him, then allying himself with Lelouch, becoming _his_ knight while Lelouch took over the world, and killing him to accomplish a goal of peace. The whole concept made him nauseous. But hey, apparently he'd also murdered thirty five million people while under Geass in Tokyo, so what did he know?

As Zerozaku gave Emperor Lelouch all the details surrounding the past events of his life, Emperor Lelouch seemed to grow alarmed. "Oh dear. I assumed that this was some part of the world of C, at first, but if Shestal had control over souls, as he mentioned, something else could be going on."

"Could this whole place be a trap created by Shestal?" Zerolouch suggested. "If so, it might be risky for our other selves to be on their own."

"I'll go look for them," Suzaku offered on a whim. He was frustrated with the inactivity and had no desire to be here any longer. The young Lelouch had yet to kill Euphie, so he would be far better company than these people. Personalities. Whatever they were.

"Excellent idea, Sir Kururugi," Julius purred. "I'll join you."

That was the worst idea in the history of time, but nobody dissuaded him. Maybe none of the Lelouchs and Suzakus knew how to handle Julius either. "The rest of us will look around and see if we can find any clue on where we actually are," Lancelot said.

Fucking coward. But then again, that wasn't a big surprise, now was it?

Suzaku would have tried to protest, but Lancelot was already dragging his emperor off, and Zerozaku was doing the same with Zerolouch. Suzaku was left with no other option but to go through with Julius's suggestion.

Julius smirked at him. It was mindboggling. Technically, he was the Lelouch who most immediately remembered being attacked and nearly strangled by Suzaku in a cell. Even so, he took in stride and accepted it with the same defiant aplomb he had displayed in front of the Grandmasters of Euro-Britannia.

Suzaku wasn't sure what to make of this.

He had always thought that, for the most part, Julius Kingsley had been a production of Charles zi Britannia's Geass. Then again, he hadn't exactly dwelled on the dynamics of it all that much either, mostly because they had made him uncomfortable.

He might have claimed otherwise, but he had not enjoyed dragging his friend in front of his father, helplessly bound, like an animal. But it had been his duty. As Euphie's knight, it had been the least he could do. Cowardly and selfish, maybe, but his only option, at a time when his heart had betrayed him, when he had not been able to press the trigger, to end Lelouch's life entirely, despite knowing that he owed it to Euphie.

It had been the same, in that cell, in Euro-Britannia. Maybe Julius knew that. Maybe he knew that, in the end, Suzaku could not bring himself to truly hurt him.

Then again, considering the series of events that had brought them all here, perhaps that wasn't so true.

He did his best to push back the thought and started to head into the general direction Suzu and Lulu had gone earlier. He half-hoped that Julius would just stay quiet and not badger him further.

Really, he should have known better than to ever contemplate such an idea.

"What are you thinking so hard about, Sir Kururugi?" Julius asked, his voice a pleasant drawl.

Suzaku debated ignoring him, just out of spite, but in the end, decided against it. "You, mostly. I'm not exactly sure why you are here. I didn't actually think you were real."

Julius laughed. "Of course I'm real. All the Lelouchs know that. Didn't you see?"

"I saw." And he had been a little confused, really. Emperor Lelouch in particular had not seemed all that surprised at Julius's existence at all. "So you're what... Lelouch's dark side?"

"How judgmental. It's nothing so black and white. How should I explain this? No, I am Lelouch, up to the point where I have his memories, but... I include... all the things he suppressed. Everything he thought was irrelevant. Everything he disregarded, for his sister's sake."

Suddenly, Julius grabbed Suzaku's arm and shoved him against a tree. He was much stronger than Suzaku remembered him to be. He pinned Suzaku down with almost embarrassing ease.

"He wanted to be with you from the very beginning, you know," Julius whispered in Suzaku's ear. "When he found out you were the pilot of the Lancelot, it almost broke his resolve... But in the end, Nunnally was always more important, and he had to continue in his quest, to build her kind, gentle world."

He breathed a gust of hot air in Suzaku's ear, and against his own will, Suzaku shuddered.

"When Charles took Lelouch's memories... our memories, I suppose... He freed me," Julius continued. "Truth be told, it was a warped version of me, a version he had tried to enslave. We fought him, though. We were always very stubborn." He smiled, a little bitterly. "Although we very rarely did that, when you were our knight."

His gaze grew softer, a little distant. "I think maybe... If you'd only wanted to stay... To stay for real... We wouldn't have fought him at all. Yes... I think that if you had just agreed to be ours, we would have agreed to be his. Nunnally be damned."

He leaned into Suzaku's space, so very close, so close that Suzaku could smell the scent of his hair, so sweet, so tantilizing. The kiss Suzaku was waiting for never came.

Julius pulled away and slid out of his arms without a word. Suzaku stared at his retreating back, leaning against a tree and feeling like he'd taken a blow to the solar plexus.

He remembered Lelouch, the way he had been in Euro-Britannia, always extending his hand, always asking for water. Why? Why had he done that? Suzaku had deemed it a side-effect of the Geass, but had it been something else entirely?

What had Lelouch been thinking then, every single time, when he had extended his hand toward Suzaku? Why had he been leaning against Suzaku, in the cell? Why had he asked Suzaku to kill him?

The questions were almost too much to bear, madenning in their intensity. Suzaku chased after Julius, desperate to know, to understand.

"Lelouch, wait."

He didn't know why he called Julius by that name, despite their earlier agreement on what they would respond to, but it must've been the right thing to do. Julius stopped and turned toward him. "Yes, what is it?"

"You remember everything, don't you? From... before Euro-Britannia. Right?"

"Of course."

"Why... Why did you kill Euphie?" He had asked before, at the shrine, but the Zero version of Lelouch had lied to him. Suzaku was sure of that. Julius, on the other hand, seemed more honest. Would he finally give Suzaku that answer, the answer that he had sought, ever since that dreadful day?

"Oh. That." Julius pursed his lips, all signs of his carefree persona gone. "To free her. From what she had done."

"Free her?" Suzaku repeated. "But... She had done nothing wrong! She was... It was your Geass! Wasn't it? Why? Why would you do something like that? Why would you curse her?"

Had it been because of him, in some twisted way? Because Euphie had taken him as her knight? It couldn't be, right? Lelouch couldn't have been so petty. Surely, he must have realized that Suzaku's relationship with Euphie didn't truly change what he felt for Lelouch.

He took hold of Lelouch's shoulders and shook him. "Why? Just... Tell me. Tell me why!"

Lelouch didn't try to free himself. He just looked at Suzaku, with that lone, defiant amethyst eye. "Believe it or not, I didn't mean it. It was an accident."

The simple words made Suzaku's blood freeze in his veins. "An... accident..."

"I lost control of my Geass. I never intended to give her that command, and once she had started killing people, there was no way to save her."

Suzaku remembered Lelouch's smug smile in the cave, his remorseless expression. That look was, in part, what had given him the strength to drag Lelouch to Pendragon. It couldn't have been a lie, could it? 

"I... How... I don't understand..."

"Well, join the club. Apparently, this sort of thing happens if you don't learn how to use your power properly. Too late to regret it now. "

The grim resignation in Lelouch's voice snapped Suzaku out of his shock. "But why... Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because it was my fault. Truth be told, Sir Kururugi... When I went there, I actually did plan on using the Geass on her. I wanted to make her shoot me, so that my injury would motivate the Japanese to continue the rebellion.

"She made me change my mind, and in the end, I agreed to join her. But... The fact remains that just through my original plan, I was tempting fate.

"Geass is the power of the king. Considering all that, and considering the fact that I did press the trigger and ended her life, I had to take responsibility for my actions, at least in some way. But you understand that, Sir Kururugi. The desire to atone."

To atone. Yes, Suzaku understood that very well.

It was the last memory he had, what he had been thinking right before he had woken up here, as he'd watched Kallen lunge at him, the Guren's claw ablaze with fire. He had thought that, at last, he would pay for the crime of being a patricide.

Apparently, that hadn't happened, and instead, he'd done something entirely different while under the 'Live on' Geass from Lelouch.

All strength drained from him and he slumped down against Julius—against Lelouch, his knees no longer able to hold him up. Lelouch helped him sit on the ground and they just sat there, with Lelouch passing a hand through Suzaku's hair.

He didn't know how much time passed until Lelouch finally broke the silence. "If it makes you feel better," he said, "you can still hate me. You can still hurt me. I wouldn't mind it. I understand."

Suzaku froze. Was that why... Was that why Lelouch... this Lelouch had offered to come with him? To give him a convenient punching bag?

It was a horrifying thought to have, but... It made sense. It was also something he could never do.

He'd always loved Lelouch, even when he'd hated him. It didn't make much difference now, but at the very least, here, at the end of all things, he could try to do better than he had in the past.

He lifted his head and faced Lelouch. His hand shaking slightly, he removed that damn eyepatch, the symbol of Lelouch's servitude. "I won't hurt you. Not ever again. I promise."

Lelouch nodded, believing him, just like that. "And I won't hurt you. Unless you ask me. Nicely."

The teasing comment drew a slight chuckle out of Suzaku. "Maybe we should save that for later, yeah? We're supposed to be looking for our younger selves."

"Sure, Sir Kururugi. That sounds like a plan. In fact, it would probably be a pretty good idea. With our luck, they'll get themselves caught and tortured by this Shestal person or whoever else is in charge of this place."

That sounded more possible than Suzaku would have liked. Determination rose inside him and he shut down everything that would not serve him for the purpose of his quest.

"Right. Let's get moving."

He and Lelouch could do anything together. They could do this too.

****

_Zerolouch_

"So this is the orangery where you buried me?"

Lelouch swept a hand over the tree trunk, taking a deep breath and inhaling the pleasant scent in the air. He wondered how it was possible for there to be air here. Both he and the other versions of him had already concluded it was not a real space. How had this been created?

"Do you really want to talk about this now?" Suzaku asked from behind him, disgruntled.

"Yes, actually. You can't blame me for being curious."

Also, he didn't know what to make of all of this. He had basically gone from willing God to not stop the march of time—which had presumably worked, according to his other selves—to waking up here and running into Suzaku—the Sir Kururugi version, who hated his guts.

The Zero version was far more sedate in his response, but then, a lot had changed since the Ragnarok Connection.

"I suppose I can't blame you for it, no." Suzaku paused. "Are you all right?"

"As fine as I can be, I suppose." Lelouch laughed. "I did just find out my whole life has been a lie, something like... ten minutes ago. Although, for you, it's been... two years."

Suzaku nodded. "A little over that, yes."

"I wish I had known. I wish... I don't know how I feel. About my mother. And even C.C."

"If it helps, C.C. did care for you. She stood by your side, until the end. Even when it became obvious that you had no intention of taking her code. And your mother and Charles got what they deserved. You made sure of that."

Right. He had killed them both in the world of C. He wished he had a memory of it. Without it, he sort of felt... cheated of his revenge.

But anyway, he supposed that was secondary. Most importantly... It seemed... Nunnally was still alive. And their goal, the goal he had always struggled to achieve, the gentle world he had been trying to build—he and Suzaku had managed to bring it all about.

That was an encouraging thought.

"Would you tell me... What the world was like? The world we created?"

Suzaku smiled, and it made him look softer, younger. "Yes. I can do that."

They were supposed to be exploring this strange place they had ended up in, but instead, they sat down at the base of one of the trees. Suzaku told him stories about Nunnally's time as an empress, about how the world had been rebuilt, about the second chance their efforts had brought about. The Black Knights were mentioned only in passing, and Lelouch was grateful for that. He was still sore about their betrayal, and about the fact that Rolo—the boy he had hated for acting as Nunnally's replacement—had been the one to save his life, proving to have been far more worthy of Lelouch's trust and affection than he had ever expected.

Suzaku's voice was soft as he spoke, so different from the brusque and almost militaristic demeanor he'd had when he'd delivered his earlier report. It reminded Lelouch of better times, when the three of them—he, Suzaku and Nunnally—had played together as children, when they had picked sunflowers, tasted the rain and laughed together as the wind passed through their hair.

He and Nunnally had been political hostages of the Kururugi family, and yet, somehow, Suzaku had managed to make it all worthwhile.

"Thank you," Lelouch said when Suzaku finally finished his tale. It wasn't just for the story itself, but for being there, in the end, for forgiving him, for carrying out the burden of the promise they had made. "It's nice to know that I wasn't just noise in the world."

"You weren't. You were so much more than that."

Suzaku's eyes were so very green, and Lelouch almost leaned in to steal a kiss. Julius's comments from earlier were apparently getting to him, and well... If he wanted to be perfectly honest, he'd always been attracted to Suzaku.

"I..." Suzaku whispered. "Lelouch..."

Lelouch tore himself away before Suzaku could distract him any further. They had a job to do here, and they had already lingered here too much. "We should probably go."

Suzaku cleared his throat and nodded. "Right. Yes. That would be good."

It was as the two of them got up that Lelouch noticed something was different. A few feet away from the treeline, a sunflower field had somehow manifested.

"What in the world... When did the sunflowers show up?"

Suzaku looked around, clearly as confused as Lelouch himself felt. "Uh... I had no idea. I didn't see them." He squinted and pointed at something now visible in the distance. "Hey... Is that the shrine? The Kururugi shrine?"

It was. And... Just beyond, if Lelouch looked a little further,  he could catch a glimpse of the small house where he and Nunnally had stayed when they were ten.

"I was thinking about it earlier, about the time we spent there as children..." he whispered. "But if that's the case..."

"Then this whole place can't be Shestal's creation," Suzaku said. "It's something else."

Where were they, exactly? What had truly happened?

Well, there was only one way to find out. At least now, they had a tentative destination. The small house it was.

It was easy enough to make their way through the field. It was just like Lelouch remembered it, which, considering the fact that it appeared to have somehow been created from his memory, made perfect sense.

The Kururugi shrine was unchanged, as well, untouched by time. They went up the same set of stairs Lelouch had once climbed with Nunnally on his back, when he had been only ten, and then later, when he and Suzaku had met for their near-truce, before the disaster with the FLEIJA.

"I wonder what would have happened had Kanon not come then, that day," Suzaku mused out loud.

Looking at him, Lelouch had a sudden realization. "You weren't the one to arrange that, were you?"

For a few seconds, Suzaku looked surprised. It was apparent that he had briefly forgotten Lelouch didn't have all the memories he had.

"No, of course not," he said. "Schneizel arranged the whole thing, including Kanon following me."

"I suppose I should have realized that sooner."

But he hadn't, and he'd blindly ordered Kallen to kill Suzaku, even when he had known about Suzaku's Geass, just because the perceived betrayal had hurt so very much.

Damn it all to hell.

"Water under the bridge now," Suzaku said, as if guessing what he was thinking.

Lelouch nodded and forced himself to go past the entry, toward the small house. He didn't know what he expected to find inside, but it was definitely not... nothing.

Like the shrine, the hovel was identical to what Lelouch remember it to be. It was also very empty, and it held none of the answers Lelouch had been hoping for.

"Well, this is anticlimactic," Suzaku said as he entered the house behind Lelouch.

"Quite," Lelouch replied.

As he spoke, Lelouch noticed something he hadn't originally seen on the table. It looked like... a bottle? He picked it up and read the writing on the label. "It says... _Use me_. What is this, Alice in Wonderland?"

Suzaku extracted the bottle from his hold and opened it. "It doesn't trigger my Geass. I don't think it's dangerous. Let's check it out."

Lelouch had very real doubts about the validity of this plan. "Suzaku, we don't even know what it is."

In response, Suzaku poured—well, squirted—some of the contents of the bottle on his hand. "Oh," he said. "It's lube."

It was almost like a cue. As soon as he finished the sentence, the door closed behind them with a decisive bang. Lelouch was not as surprised as he should have been when he and Suzaku realized they couldn't open it. It was locked, but there was also some kind of barrier enforcing it, because when Suzaku tried to force it open, it didn't work.

Well, this was unfortunate.

"Any other ideas?" he asked Suzaku when it became obvious they were stuck.

Suzaku shrugged. "I vote for using it," he said, pointing at the lube.

"I'm not sure how that'll help us get out, Suzaku," Lelouch replied.

"It probably won't," Suzaku admitted. "But I haven't had sex in two years and I really want to have sex with you. So... What do you say?"

For a few seconds, Lelouch just considered his options. It was a really bad plan.

But on the other, he and Suzaku had both tried to think in perspective for the better part of their lives, and that hadn't worked out too well for them.

Screw it.

"I'm game," he said.

Suzaku didn't have to be told twice. In a mere flash, he reached for Lelouch. Elsewhere, a watching figure sighed in relief. At least two of them were doing what they were supposed to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To make it clear, all the Suzakus will refer themselves as Suzaku when something is written from their POV. Same goes for the Lelouchs. There is a bit of a mix between what they will call one another now, but they will learn to use the names they picked for themselves.


	4. Nightmares

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I have added a new tag and a new pairing. Yes, you can expect it to get weirder. This will be, by far, one of the weirdest stories I've ever written :)) Enjoy, and thank you for your comments and kudos.

_Suzu_

Suzaku stalked through the orangery, his head spinning with anger and denial. This was some kind of strange nightmare. It had to be. He just needed to make his way out of it. He needed to wake up, break free out of the hold of these... things that were keeping him captive, and go back to Euphie. Go back to the SAZ. Find her there, keep her safe.

Find Lelouch too, and make sure he didn't do anything stupid.

A familiar voice reached his ears as he struggled to find a path that would lead him out of his hellish place. "Suzaku. Suzaku, wait!"

Suzaku didn't really want to wait or speak to any version of Lelouch. While he could not believe everything these creatures were telling him, he could no longer deny the fact that Lelouch was Zero.

Or... Could he?

Maybe that was the key to the whole story. When he had been at Narita, that green-haired girl had managed to somehow make all sort of nightmarish images flash through his mind. Sure, there had been his father... But there had also been other things, things that had not been real, but had terrified him regardless. Maybe this was similar, and only a nightmare created by his foolish suspicions.

Lelouch wasn't Zero. And even if he had been, he would never hurt Euphie. Lelouch had never spoken about his other siblings, but even so and no matter how much he hated Britannia, he could not have lashed out at someone like Euphie, who was so kind-hearted and pure. That went against everything Lelouch himself stood for, against the reason for his promise. Right?

Yes, Lelouch was his friend. He would never do such things.

Yes, this was all a bad dream and nothing more.

Somewhat more relieved, Suzaku slowed down. Lelouch caught up with him faster than expected. "Are you all right?" he asked.

Suzaku smiled at him, now feeling stupid for having run off like that. "Yes. Well, sort of. I'm pretty sure this is a crazy dream, something that green-haired girl created. It has to be. Zero or not, you'd never hurt Euphie. I believe that."

"Thanks," Lelouch replied, although he still looked troubled. "I don't... I don't know what is going on either. When your other self showed up, I was convinced that we were dead. That we'd died in Shinjuku. If they're to be believed, we did die... But later... I just don't know."

They sat together on the grass, in the shade of a tree. The remaining tension inside Suzaku started to dissipate. Lelouch leaned against his shoulder, and on a whim, Suzaku reached out to entwine their fingers. "What do you suppose this is about then?"

"Well... I swore I would obliterate Britannia. But that doesn't mean I wasn't afraid of what it would mean, on some level. That I'd have to hurt people I cared about.

"I do love Euphie. I mean, she's very important to me, and we were very close when I lived in Pendragon. This will sound weird but..." He laughed lightly. "She's probably the first girl I ever loved."

"I guess incest isn't that uncommon in the Britannian imperial family?" Suzaku joked. He wasn't sure how he felt about the confession. Jealous? Of whom? Of Lelouch? Of Euphie? Did it matter?

God, he was confused.

"No, it's not," Lelouch admitted, squeezing his hand. "And it was probably never like that between us. But... Anyway... The last thing I would want is to hurt her. So maybe that's what this is, a manifestation of my fear."

Except that would mean that Suzaku was a figment of Lelouch's imagination, and he definitely wasn't. Or well... He didn't feel like it.

Did figments of imagination have feelings of their own? Who knew? Maybe they did.

"This is complicated," he said. "Can we not talk about it any longer? I think we've already established what matters—which is the fact that you'd never do what those creatures said you would."

Lelouch nodded. "I agree. I suppose our real priority would be finding a way out before they come after us."

"I find it really amusing that you think they're the real problem," a different voice said.

Suzaku and Lelouch both shot to their feet. They turned, only to see yet another Suzaku emerge from the shadows.

He was wearing something entirely different, an ornate white and gold costume that reminded Suzaku himself of the Lancelot's color scheme. The red accents on the peculiar earring the wore, as well as the bright gemstone on his sword, reminded Suzaku a bit of Lancelot—well, of the Suzaku who had decided on that name for himself.

Despite this, there was something about this particular Suzaku that was more unnerving than any of the others they had met before.

His eyes... His eyes looked wrong. They weren't green, like Suzaku's own. Instead, they were... sort of red, branded... Like the eyes of the Lelouchs.

Was this another manifestation of the nightmare?

"Where the hell did you come from?" he asked. "Who are you?"

"I'm you, of course," the other Suzaku replied. "Well, in a way. But if you want to use a name for me, I'm rather fond of the White Reaper."

The White Reaper? Was that supposed to be some kind of play upon words? A reference to the Grim Reaper?

Either way, it was not encouraging.

"Lelouch, stay behind me," he said, shielding Lelouch with his own body. "I don't know what this thing is, but it could hurt you."

The creature laughed. "Really? You're going there? Have you already forgotten, Suzu, that you tried to kill your friend while you were well aware that he could be the one hiding behind the mask?"

Suzaku froze. He knew exactly what the Reaper was referring to, but... It wasn't true. He was wrong. "I... I didn't... I didn't know..."

"Of course you did." The Reaper smirked. "You saw the mask when it was on Arthur's head. But you told yourself you'd seen wrong, because it was easier, easier to deny it, so that you could go on your merry way without acknowledging Lelouch was doing something he wasn't supposed to.

"And of course... Then, when you received the orders to kill Zero on Kaminejima, you rushed to obey them. You would've happily ended both his life, and your own, just so that you could keep your head buried in the sand.

"He is Zero, you know, and half the reason why he picked up that mask was to save your life and bring freedom to your country. But you spat in his face when he extended you his hand, because you were too cowardly to do what it took."

Suzaku's head started to spin. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think. No, he hadn't... The only thing he had wanted was to do good. To bring peace. To help. He hadn't...

Lelouch wasn't Zero. He couldn't be, and Suzaku couldn't have hurt him.

His knees went weak and he dropped down to the ground, no longer able to face the creature wearing his face. "I... I..."

Lelouch's familiar, beloved voice snapped right through his trance. "Stop it!" he shouted. "Stop speaking!"

"How nostalgic. Unfortunately, your Geass has long ago stopped working on me, sweetheart. But the effort is still appreciated."

With the corner of his eye, Suzaku caught sight of the Reaper making a grab for Lelouch. Just like that, something inside him seemed to shatter. He shot to his feet and lunged toward at his other self.

He would not allow the Reaper to hurt Lelouch. Over his dead body.

The Reaper smirked, as if he could read Suzaku's mind. "That can be arranged."

****

_Julius_

Lelouch didn't know how long he and his Suzaku ambled through the orangery. They didn't seem to be getting anywhere, and it was frustrating him to no end.

It certainly didn't help that, the more time passed, the more he was questioning the validity of his previous plan of action.

Was he really doing the right thing by simply going to help Suzu and Lulu? In the end, what did he care about them anyway? If anything, he should be focusing on himself and Suzaku, instead of on their younger selves.

 "Suzaku, wait," he called out.

In front of him, Suzaku stopped and turned, shooting him an alarmed look. "What is it? Everything all right?"

Lelouch eyed Suzaku's earnest face, considering his approach. He still believed in Suzaku's old mantra—that the two of them could do anything together. But would he be willing to try something like this?

There was one way to find out.

 "Listen," he said, "I think that by now, we've all realized that we, the younger selves, are in some way, artificial constructs. Creations of Geass. I don't know what could've occurred when Shestal summoned my older self's soul, but if what Zerozaku says is right, I might have a body waiting for me as well. But that's just it... There'll only be one body, just like there'll only be one body for you as well. And these bodies don't rightfully belong to us, because we are artifacts of the past and we shouldn't exist in the first place."

"What are you suggesting?" Suzaku asked, looking at him with keen, green eyes.

"I think you know," Lelouch said, cupping Suzaku's cheek gently. "We can still make our way out of here. We can still have a future together. It's not too late." He refused to give up. He would never give up. For him, for Suzaku, he had to continue to fight, no matter what he had to do.

Suzaku's breath caught. Lelouch smiled at him. "Will you be my knight now, Sir Kururugi? Will you join me, so that we can have something new and real together?"

His heart was hammering. He'd always wanted this. Even when he had been making plans to ask Suzaku to be Nunnally's knight, in his heart, Lelouch had always wanted Suzaku for himself. And he refused to deny it any longer.

Fortunately, Suzaku didn't leave him waiting. He dropped to his knee and bowed his head in the perfect posture of a Britannian knight, the same one he had used to pledge allegiance to Euphie and Charles in those two anomalous knighthoods that never should have happened.

"Yes," Suzaku said. "Yes, I will. From this moment henceforth, until death take me, I vow to be the sword and shield of Lelouch vi Britannia and protect him from all threats, as his knight." He looked up, took Lelouch's hand and kissed it. "So that we can have something new and real together."

His green eyes held so much emotion that Lelouch could not help himself. Even if he knew he really shouldn't be pursuing the attraction between him and Suzaku at that particular instant, he knelt next to Suzaku and crushed  his mouth to that of his new knight.

He'd denied his feelings for Suzaku for so long, and judging by what he'd seen of his other selves, that hadn't changed much after he'd recovered his memory. Despite being well aware of his feelings, he had done nothing to pursue them. Considering that Suzaku had pretty much hated him at the time, it made sense, but now, they were no longer in that situation, and Lelouch couldn't help but take advantage of this moment, the moment he'd craved for what seemed like an age.

Suzaku kissed him back with that very same desperation. His tongue explored Lelouch's mouth almost savagely, and his grip on Lelouch was just as tight as it had been in the past, when he'd nearly choked Lelouch in an Euro-Britannian cell.

It couldn't last, as they were both much too aware of their less than ideal circumstances. When they parted their lips, Lelouch finally remembered to respond to Suzaku's heartfelt vow.

"I now dub thee, Sir Suzaku Kururugi, Knight of Lelouch vi Britannia."

Suzaku laughed breathlessly against his lips. "You have an interesting approach to knighting."

"Any complaints?" Lelouch asked, squeezing Suzaku's erect dick through the material of his tailored uniform.

"None whatsoever," Suzaku groaned. "Oh, God... Can we... We should..."

Ugh. "Yeah. I really, really want to blow you, but we'll just have to do that once we're out and free." Really, it was a bit of a sin that he had yet to give Suzaku a blow job. Soon, he told himself. Soon.

Suzaku's pupils were glazed, but he didn't protest the approach. He adjusted himself in his pants as he got up and took a deep breath, gathering his composure. "Sounds like a plan, Your Highness."

Now in agreement, the two of them returned to the matter at hand. The other Suzakus and Lelouchs already had a head start because Lelouch and Suzaku had wasted time with their self-indulgent behavior, but that didn't mean they were out of the game just yet.

Of course, they still had no idea where they were actually supposed to go, so they picked a direction pretty much at random, different from the one they'd been going in before.

"What will we do if some of the others find the way out first?" Suzaku asked.

Lelouch considered the question carefully. "Well, I suppose it depends on the true nature of this space. If I'm right and this is a sort of multiple personality thing, the fact that someone other than us takes over our bodies doesn't mean we can't necessarily make the attempt to claim said bodies ourselves."

He half-expected his knight to show some degree of resistance to the suggestion. When he had been in Euro-Britannia, he'd never protested to Lelouch's plans, but their mental states had been different at the time.

However, Suzaku did not seem inclined to back out of their deal now. If anything, he seemed relieved to have a plan and completely set on his mission.

It was kind of hot and Lelouch was very tempted to thrown his previous decision out the window, pull Suzaku into a bush and have his knight fuck him right then and there. But as much as that thought appealed, he'd have time aplenty to get down and dirty with Suzaku, once they were out in the real world and the threat was removed. It grated on Lelouch to admit it, but his older self had been right about this. They had to prioritize. Even if one of said priorities involved destroying/defeating their future/past selves.

Of course, Lelouch should have known better than to think any plan he came up with would not blow up in his face. The path they were on suddenly ended, and they came upon something that looked like a twisted mimicry of the Grand Duke's palace in St. Petersburg.

In the center of the courtyard, on the edge of the massive, ornate fountain, sat a familiar man. His fingers trailed over the water in an absent-minded manner. He looked up when Suzaku and Lelouch appeared in his line of sight, not seeming in the least bit surprised upon their appearance.

"It's kind of funny to see that ruthless approach in someone other than me. I approve."

The man in question was yet another rendition of Lelouch, but he was dressed in something entirely different than the other selves—personalities—they had met. He was wearing an elaborate, black ensemble, with wide sleeves and a neckerchief that far surpassed the one he'd worn during his time as Zero. His ear was adorned with a silver earring that curled around the lobe. A massive amethyst dangled from its lower half, much like the one that Lelouch himself had worn of his eyepatch. It matched the elaborate ring the other Lelouch wore on his finger, as well as the huge stone adorning the sword on his hip.

The stranger's eyes were in their natural, purple state, but Lelouch suspected it wasn't because the Geass was in its incipient form, like Lulu's situation.

Well, the only way to find out was to ask. "Do you really?" he asked. "I'd feel flattered, but I can't truly do that when I believe we haven't really met."

"Indeed, we have not," the other Lelouch said, jumping off the edge of the fountain. "But I didn't really think it was a necessity."

The amused little smirk on his lips made realization dawn for Lelouch. "Are you the one in control of this whole place? Are you keeping us trapped here?"

"Good guess," his mysterious, black-clad self said. His silver-tipped boots made an almost threatening sound as he walked forward. "Yes, I'm the one keeping you here. Not that you've been very appreciative of my efforts. Sad thing, that. I was sort of counting on you distracting these ones with an orgy."

"Well, as much as that thought appeals, you know I've never been crazy about the idea of being manipulated," Lelouch replied bitingly.

"True. It's honestly a little sad that Zerozaku is doing a better job than you. But I suppose I should've known better than to expect anything different. We always were so very contrary. You in particular. Yes, I should've known better than to expect to control you."

Normally, Lelouch would have been intrigued by the Zerozaku part of the comment—and a part of him still was—but he had other, more important things to worry about. Such as the possible, imminent danger to his existence.

 Suzaku had the same idea. "Wait a minute,"  he piped up. "Back up. Who are you, exactly, and why are you doing this?"

"I'm many things. Lelouch vi Britannia, the Demon Emperor. But these days, I go by L.L. As for why I'm doing this... Well, those reasons are my own. You don't really need to know."

As he spoke, the threatening aura around him increased to such extents it made goosebumps rise over Lelouch's skin. Suzaku must've sensed it as well—maybe his Geass was telling him something was wrong—because he went rigid. "I think this is where we run."

Without further ado, he grabbed Lelouch and draped him over his shoulder. He took off the same way  they'd come, dashing through the orangery without looking back.

Lelouch heard a bout of delighted laughter echoing behind them, and that didn't fill him with much confidence at all. He now wished he truly had been Lelouch's dark side, as his Suzaku had suggested earlier, if only because it would've meant they wouldn't have run into said personality.

Instinctively, Lelouch knew an escape on foot wouldn't work. They needed some other way, some method that would help them put more distance between themselves and the obviously more powerful L.L.

Just as Lelouch thought this, something strange happened. All of a sudden, they—or rather Suzaku—burst through the treeline and ran into an unexpected sight.

It was... a railway. It sort of reminded Lelouch of the time he and Suzaku had taken the train to St. Petersburg, but at the same time, it was very different.

A strange wagon rolled in even as Lelouch watched. Suzaku didn't hesitate. He simply jumped on it. While the exact nature of the wagon was dubious and its appearance suspicious, the fact remained that they needed all the help they could get.

Unfortunately, the 'train' they were on only bought them a minute, if that. Lelouch didn't see the projectile that hit the wagon they were on. Maybe it wasn't a projectile at all, and simply a shock wave of some kind. Either way, the wagon went of the rail and the two of them went flying in two different directions.

Suzaku landed on the right side of the tracks, whereas Lelouch hit the ground with a painful thud on the left.

His head was spinning, and he groaned as he tried to gather his bearings and get up. The moment his vision started to clear, he almost wished it hadn't.

L.L. knelt by his side, a small smirk on his lips. "That was cute. Well done. Unfortunately, as much as you try, you can never beat me here." He tapped his lower lip, as if considering something. "But I suppose I should give you a prize, for making the attempt."

Lelouch's eyes widened as his other self pulled him in for a kiss. He knew he should be protesting. He knew he should be fighting back in some way. In the background, he could hear his knight crying out.

But his other self's lips were soft and strangely gentle against his and their minds connected in a way Lelouch did not expect. Flashes slid through Lelouch's memory, images of a future he only knew from the stories the others had told him.

And there was something else, something no one had ever said, the true answer behind their predicament.

When L.L. pulled away, Lelouch's mind was swirling with his new knowledge. He wanted to ask more questions, but he didn't get the chance.

He blinked, and just like that, L.L. vanished, and the landscape around them morphed into something entirely different.

By the time Suzaku ran to Lelouch's side, the walls of their cell from Euro-Britannia had already risen around them. Well, wasn't this just great?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For reference, L.L. and the Reaper are wearing this:  
> https://otakumode.com/news/59c4c835aa275fef744612a4/Code-Geass%E2%80%99-Lelouch-and-Suzaku-Back-to-Back-in-G-E-M-Figure!


	5. Confrontation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go! Update! As always thank you to everyone who commented and kudos-ed! All your feedback is welcome.

_Lancelot_

Walking side by side with Lelouch through the orangery was... odd. Lelouch hadn't said much since they'd left their other selves behind, and Suzaku himself didn't know what to say either. Now that the first shock of their arrival had passed, he was a little overwhelmed by the realization that apparently gone through the Requiem plan, he had killed Lelouch, and it had worked—at least until he had been killed.

It was good to know, he supposed, that it hadn't all been for nothing, but at the same time... At the same time, what?

Why were they here? Why had this version of him manifested, in addition to the one that belonged to the future?

He didn't know, but he knew one thing.

In those last moments he remembered, the moments when he had doubted that he would be able to make his escape from the dead Lancelot, a thought had crossed his mind. He had never told Lelouch how he felt about him.

Maybe it was stupid to fixate on that now, when there were so many other things that were more important. But the words were bubbling on his lips now, and he could not stop them.

"Lelouch?" he called out.

His emperor turned toward him, an inquiring look on his beautiful face. "Yes? What is it?"

"I don't know if I... If my other self ever told you... But... I really love you."

Now that he'd actually spoken the words out loud, he wasn't satisfied with how they sounded. They seemed... strangely underwhelming, somehow.

He repeated the sentence, this time in Japanese. _Ai shitemasu yo._ There. That was better.

Lelouch's breath caught. He understood, because, of course he did. "Oh, Suzaku... No, you never told me. But... I think in my heart, I always knew. And well...  _Ai_ —"

Before Lelouch could finish the sentence, a much too familiar cry split the air. "Suzaku!"

It was a strange echo of the barely-there memory he had of Lelouch in the Shinjuku tunnels. He and Lelouch shared a panicked look, and then, of common accord, started to run in the direction of the sound.

They got to their destination just in time to see Suzu facing off with yet another version of them, and losing, badly.

The second... err, other Suzaku—who was dressed in an elaborate white and gold ensemble very different from anything Suzaku himself had worn in the past—had their youngest self pinned to the ground, and appeared to be seconds away from taking Suzu's head off with his ornate, but far too sharp-looking sword. Suzaku didn't hesitate. He pounced on his other self, dislodging his grip on Suzu.

The other Suzaku's sword flew out of his grasp, but that was about the only thing Suzaku himself managed to accomplish. His opponent went with the blow, somehow rolling them mid-air in a way that meant Suzaku was the one who hit the ground first. Suzaku was not deterred by this. He headbutted his other self and kicked out, freeing himself from the incipient hold this new... personality—or whatever he was—had on him.

As soon as he was loose, he shot to his feet and drew his own sword, placing himself as a barrier in front of his fallen self and the two, much too vulnerable Lelouchs. The other Suzaku wasted no time in retrieving his own blade. He did not seem in the least bit alarmed by Suzaku's appearance.

"Oh, it's you. Wonderful. I might not like this one very much, but I like you even less."

"I'd love to say I'm surprised, but it's been years since I've liked myself, so... You know, join the club and all that."

For a few seconds, the two of them just faced each other, tension vibration through the air. The other Suzaku moved first, his sword flashing through the air with almost impossible speed. Suzaku blocked the blow, but his teeth rattled and his shoulder ached at the strength behind it.

Okay, so maybe that hadn't been a good plan.

Distantly, Suzaku wondered what it even meant that he felt pain here, but he didn't allow himself to be distracted. His Geass was screaming louder than it had when he'd been fighting Bismarck on Kaminejima. This was not good.

Still, Suzaku refused to give up. "Run," he called over his shoulder. "I'll stall him."

The other Suzaku laughed. "It's really cute that you think you can accomplish that."

"You don't know until you try."

He'd long ago stopped experiencing any kind of optimism. If anything, he found that, in most situations, the worst things that could possibly happen usually did—especially when it came to him and Lelouch. That didn't mean he would ever cower and hide, not when it meant leaving the two Lelouchs to his evil self.

The other Suzaku didn't bother with a reply. He simply attacked once again.

As expected, Suzaku found himself heavily outmatched. His opponent was much stronger in every possible way. Several times, it was only the Geass that allowed him to duck just in time to avoid being gutted. He tried to sneak under his other self's guard, as it was obvious he had even less chances of overcoming him through sheer strength than he'd had with the Knight of One. Unfortunately, he'd never been a particularly strategic fighter, far preferring straightforward confrontations. Despite his best attempts, he could not hope to combat someone who knew all his moves, had all his skills and was more powerful.

In the end, his other self found one particular moment in which Suzaku was unable to duck and used it to his advantage. In the blink of an eye, Suzaku's sword flew out of his grip, and pain erupted through Suzaku's arm as a bone snapped. The other Suzaku rushed at him, so very close, ready to deliver the finishing blow. Suzaku's Geass was screaming, but for some reason, he found himself rooted in his spot.

That final hit never landed. The other Suzaku flew back, thrown through the air by an unseen force. He landed neatly on his feet, barely ruffled. Meanwhile, Lelouch—Emperor Lelouch—stepped forward, as dignified and unafraid as he'd been when he'd faced the FLEIJA. "Leave him be. If you want to hurt someone, hurt me."

The strange Suzaku instantly lowered his sword. "I'd never do that, Your Majesty. You, I'd never hurt."

"Excuse me?" Lelouch asked. "Who are you, exactly?"

"I'm your knight, of course, Your Majesty. Your real knight." He sneered in Suzaku's general direction. "Unlike this pathetic impostor."

"I don't understand," Lelouch replied. "He's not an impostor."

"I can see why you might think that," the other Suzaku said, his voice mellow, as if he was picking his words carefully. "You are not in the wrong in believing it." The almost gentle demeanor he displayed toward Lelouch shifted entirely when he turned his gaze to Suzaku once again. "However, when you're a knight, you don't pick and choose which duties to follow. You are a sword _and_ a shield. You don't dump your responsibilities on someone else, because it's convenient for you.

"What do you think the witch did for him that you couldn't have done better, Lancelot? Could you not have held him and offered him a comforting ear when he needed it? Could you not have protected him, better than she ever did?"

Suzaku's breath caught at the taunting words. None of what his other self was saying was wrong. It was just that... He had wanted to do all those things, so many times. But he had feared that if he did do them, he would back out, and not be able to go through with the Zero Requiem, as he had promised.

The white-clad Suzaku smirked, as if able to hear his thoughts. "Yes, of course. It was never about Lelouch's weakness, was it? But about your own. That's why you went through with the Requiem—not because you really wanted it, but because you simply couldn't come up with a better idea. And you didn't trust yourself to..."

"Enough!" Lelouch snapped, interrupting his words.  "Suzaku is not under trial here. He never did anything I didn't ask him to."

"Is that a fact?" the other Suzaku asked. "So he never took you captive? Never attempted to kill you, before the SAZ massacre even happened? Never held you down while your father raped your mind? Never failed to protect you?"

"It was my fault. I'm the one who started our circle of hate. If I hadn't killed Euphie..."

"If you hadn't killed Euphie, if you'd taken her hand that day, as you wanted, the world would've ended. Your Geass would've never evolved enough for C.C.'s liking—not quickly enough, at least—and she would've gone through with Charles's plan. Even if she had wanted to stay, Charles would've come after her, and that would've been that.

"The massacre wasn't your fault, as we both know very well, and granted, maybe if things hadn't gone wrong, you may have been able to find another solution to fix everything before it was too late. But I suppose we'll never know now."

Suzaku didn't know which part of that to address first, the fact that a version of him existed that, to a certain extent, approved of—or at least accepted—Euphie's death, or the concept that Lelouch had apparently wanted to join Euphie all along.

In the end, he focused on the latter issue, since the first part was so beyond his power of comprehension he couldn't process it. "You... intended to accept Euphie's offer?" he asked Lelouch.

The other Suzaku replied in Lelouch's stead. "The Geass went out of control at the SAZ. He never wanted to give her that command. But mistakes happen. As you well know, considering the fact that your rash mistake ended with you blowing up Tokyo."

"He was under my Geass then," Lelouch said weakly. "It wasn't his fault."

"He knew his situation perfectly well when he got into the Conquista, and he did it anyway," the other Suzaku shot back.

At that, Suzaku finally found a measure of mental calm. "I'm well aware," he replied. "That's exactly why... That's why I had to atone. To take up the mask, and become Zero. To give Lelouch peace through the Requiem."

"And it never occurred to you that you could've just started over?" the other Suzaku asked. "Become his knight for real, without destroying yourself and him in the process?"

"You know that it did... But it was too selfish. I couldn't... I couldn't do that. We couldn't... I had to fix what I'd broken instead of letting my own feelings get in the way."

"And the end result is that you killed the man you loved and ultimately broke things further. Congratulations. You're officially the worst knight in the history of time. You probably deserve a plaque for it."

Suzaku wanted to point out that, according to Zerozaku, the Requiem had worked, but he didn't have the heart to do it. His other self had a point. He _was_ the worst knight in history. He'd utterly failed Euphie, had turned on Charles, then discarded the deal he'd made with Schneizel the very same day he'd made it. Honestly, considering his history, it would have been more surprising if he had been a good knight to Lelouch.

Lelouch looked like he wanted to say something else in Suzaku's  defense, but he didn't get the chance. A black-clad figure stepped into their line of sight, gliding gracefully to the Suzaku dressed in white.

"Nothing is quite so simple, my knight. You know that. You can't blame yourself for every single thing in the world. What happened, happened. We were all working with limited information at the time, and we all made mistakes. Understand?"

It was... Lelouch. Yet another Lelouch. This one was dressed into an ornate black costume that was obvious counterpart to the one the other Suzaku was wearing. The purple accents were vaguely reminiscent of his time as Julius Kingsley, but at the same time, matched his vibrant amethyst eyes.

As soon as this new Lelouch appeared, his Suzaku's posture instantly changed. "My apologies," he said. "My temper got away from me."

"It's fine." The mysterious Lelouch brushed his fingers over the other Suzaku's cheek in a caress that Suzaku himself couldn't help but crave. "I know you mean well. But remember the rules."

"In my defense, I still hate everyone else more than I hate myself?" the white-clad Suzaku tried to defend himself in an almost sheepish tone.

"That doesn't help much, dear, when you're still taking out your anger on yourself, not others. And yes, attacking your other selves counts, as you very well know."

"Well, yes, but I haven't actually used it, did I?" He wrapped an arm around the new Lelouch's waist and unceremoniously pulled him into his arms. "I think I should actually get a kiss for my restraint."

He didn't elaborate on the meaning of the cryptic comment, the argument seemed to convince the still-unidentified Lelouch, as he didn't resist into the slightest. The rest of them were left standing/sitting there awkwardly watching as the guy who'd just tried to kill/maul them made out with his version of their best friend/would-be lover/emperor/whatever Lelouch was to them. There was something almost vicious and desperate about the way they were holding onto one another, like there was nothing else but the two of them in the world, and it made Suzaku want to reenact their kiss with his own Lelouch.

Before he could go through with his completely reasonable plan, the new members of their group pulled away. The final Lelouch licked his now swollen lips, briefly smiled at his Suzaku, then turned toward the rest of them. "Is everyone all right? My Reaper isn't always discriminating with the amount of damage he does."

"Suzaku... Well, Suzu is a bit roughed up," Lulu pointed out. Despite his visible shock, he appeared to be trying to focus on immediate priorities and had already run to Suzu's side. "And I think Lancelot's wrist is broken."

The new Lelouch knelt next to Suzu, who was, indeed, pretty battered. He brushed his lips over Suzu's in a ghost of a kiss. It was entirely different from the way he had kissed his Suzaku, and just like that, all the wounds on Suzu's body vanished. "It's okay," he whispered. "I know this is difficult, and you don't understand. Ignore him. Even after all this time, he still hates himself, despite my best attempts to stop it. But like I said, not everything is his fault, yours, or even mine."

Suzu provided no answer to that. Instead, he clutched Lulu's hand like it was a lifeline.

Once the new Lelouch finished his first task, he made his way to Suzaku's side. He took hold of Suzaku's wrist and pressed his lips to the skin. The pain instantly faded. "There. All better now."

Suzaku nodded, dazed. He was all better, all right, but he had an entirely different problem.

God, he was fucked up.

The newly arrived Lelouch shot him a quick smirk, and once again, Suzaku had a feeling that his mind was being read. In a desperate bid to make some sense of this—and not think about why he was getting an erection in these circumstances—he asked, "Who are you two, exactly? What is going on?"

It was his Lelouch who actually addressed the question. He walked up to Suzaku, extracting his hand from the other Lelouch's hold and scanning it for any injuries. Once he was satisfied that Suzaku was unscathed, he said, "Isn't it obvious, Suzaku? They're our older selves. Something else happened after Shestal, after what the events Zerozaku told us about. Something that led us to become... this."

"Bravo," the new Lelouch said. "Excellent deduction. Yes, we are your older selves. You can call me L.L. and my knight the White Reaper. And incidentally, we're the ones who control this little... space."

"What is it that you want from us?" Lulu asked.

"We don't actually want anything," L.L. replied. "Simply for you to continue to exist and not attempt escape. Which... of course, you're already trying." He laughed lightly. "In fact, Julius and Sir Kururugi were already making plans of leaving everyone else stuck here and taking over our bodies themselves."

Wait, what?

"Why am I not surprised?" Suzaku's Lelouch muttered.

"It's not possible, by the way," L.L. answered. "I would never allow it. But still, it was a good effort."

This final sentence—or perhaps the almost smug tone in which it was said—was the straw that broke the camel's back. "Please... Can we just... Stop for a bit."

The new speaker was Suzu. He slowly got up, gently freeing himself from a concerned-looking Lulu's hold. "Just tell me... Am I going insane? Have I finally lost it? Are you all... monsters? Why are you saying all these horrible things?"

The volume of his voice kept rising more and more as he spoke, and by the end, he was screaming. Suzaku couldn't say he was surprised. He had been screaming inside for the better part of his life, and his younger self was no different.

Despite this, L.L.'s earlier words seemed to have reached him up to a point, because he was clearly turning to the older Lelouch for explanations. L.L. took everything in stride.

"The answer to those questions is... complicated," he said, "but I can tell you this. Everything we've spoken about is true." He pursed his lips, as considering his options. "This will take some time, but I might as well start everything over, from the beginning. But first... Perhaps we should get everyone else here..."

He flicked his fingers and four more figures appeared. Sir Kururugi and Julius neatly landed on the grass mere feet away from Suzaku himself. For unknown reasons, they appeared to be curled up together and holding hands. Their pallor was not encouraging.

Suzaku might have been tempted to ask what the hell was going on with them, but he was a bit distracted by the sight of the remaining two. Zerozaku had wasted no time in pursuing his attraction to his own Lelouch and when he and Zerolouch landed on the grass, he was literally mid-thrust.

The shift in locations made him momentarily freeze. Then, he looked around at all of them and seemed to decide to throw all sense out the window and resumed his previous activity, burying himself in his Lelouch's ass.

Zerolouch was in a similar situation. Despite being on all fours, ass up in the air, bracing his face on his forearms, he seemed to figure out something wasn't right. "What the..." he managed to gasp out.

Whatever he had been about to ask was lost as Zerozaku went back to fucking him. He let out a drawn out moan and arched his back in a way that made Suzaku wonder when the hell Lelouch had become so flexible.

"Um," Suzu said simply as he watched them with wide-eyes. Apparently, the sight of their older selves fucking had deflated his anger.

Suzaku suspected this was no coincidence. Lelouch's strategic mind struck again.

"Well, that answers one question," Julius commented. "My goodness, Suzaku, you have a nice ass."

"Err... Thanks," Sir Kururugi replied. "You look good with my dick inside you."

"Thanks."

"Do you want to join in?" the Reaper asked. "We can come back later, if you're busy."

Suzaku was awfully tempted to do exactly that, but the issue was rendered moot when his other self bit on the juncture of his Lelouch's throat. With an inarticulate cry, Zerolouch came, and seconds later, Zerozaku followed.

By now, all of them were feeling a little hot under the collar, and it was a testament to how strange they found the situation that nothing more was said or done. Ultimately, it was Zerozaku himself who spoke next. He pulled out of Zerolouch, took another look around, wiped his face, and then said, "So... There's two more of us, I see. Where exactly do the two of you come in?"

"I think that's what we're here to find out," Zerolouch pointed out. He was still breathing hard, and the sight of his sweaty, semen-covered form did nothing for Suzaku's own ability for rational thought.

"Maybe you could... Err... You know... Cover yourselves. Not that I'm shy or don't appreciate the view, but some of us haven't been as lucky as you two."

"Tsk, tsk," L.L. said. "We're going to have to fix that soon. Shame on me for making you suffer."

He waved his hand, and just like that, Zerozaku and Zerolouch were clean and dressed. "But all joking aside, my younger self is in fact correct. I did bring you here to give you some answers. Only, you won't like them very much."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In Japanese, there are all kinds of different nuances for 'I love you', different degrees and words to use. The version Suzaku uses in this chapter conveys both deep commitment and formality. If I remember correctly, it's more appropriate to situations like marriage proposals. I thought it fit the dynamic Suzaku and Lelouch have best.


	6. Betrayal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go! An update, finally. I am working on several things right now, and am doing NaNo for an original novel, so it might take me a little longer to post the next one, but I hope you will enjoy this one :) As always, comments and kudos are love.

_L.L._

When he had first created—or rather, modified—this space, Lelouch had not intended to interact all that much with his other selves. He had simply needed a solution to the predicament he'd found himself in, and this had seemed like the best bet. Keeping his other selves trapped here might have seemed cruel, especially considering the reason why both they and this space existed to begin with, but it was better than the alternative.

He might have had more luck with the idea had said selves not been so very determined to spite him, and had four Suzakus to add to the mix.

Truthfully, what he had told Emperor Lelouch was not exactly true. If the other four Lelouchs united their forces, it would be possible for them to force their way out. The problem was that, if they did so, this space would collapse, possibly leading to the permanent mental breakdown of both him and Suzaku, in the real world.

As such, they had to find some kind of middle ground, and by necessity, that had to start with their youngest selves.

Zerozaku and Zerolouch had distracted the duo from most of their youthful angst, but Lelouch couldn't expect them to think with their cocks forever. So he'd just have to tell them the truth and then get them accustomed to the concept of what had occurred.

"Zerozaku was unfortunately rather brusque in his previous explanation. For the purpose of clarity and for the benefit of our youngest selves, I will be giving a more thorough and organized account of our pasts. Regardless of your questions or previous knowledge, you will all remain silent until I finish speaking."

This was particularly addressed to Julius and Sir Kururugi, who already sort of knew the whole thing because Lelouch had impulsively given Julius back the memories that belonged to him. But it was only fair. He'd probably have to do that to all of them, eventually. But not just yet. Not before they reached a middle ground that would allow him to function like the sane human being he wasn't.

"It all started on August 15, 2017, a.t.b. A capsule containing the trapped form of the immortal witch C.C. was stolen by the rebel group led by Kaname Ohgi. While attempting to escape from the pursuing Britannian army, they got into an accident. Without knowing the details of the incident, I rushed to their assistance—only to end up trapped into the rebels' truck when they went on their way once again.

"The truck crashed for a second time in the subway lines beneath Tokyo, where Suzaku and I reunited for the first time. He had become an Honorary Britannian, hoping to change the system from within, a decision heavily influenced by the fact that he'd killed his father at age ten."

The latter words drew a clear reaction from many of those present, who obviously had not expected him to bring that up. Considering everything else that was to follow, Lelouch thought it was better to get this part of the way.

"Incidentally, he'd done the right thing, because had he not intervened, Nunnally and I would've probably been killed and the Japanese resistance would've been far worse off. But we're getting off topic.

"In the tunnels, Suzaku was shot by Clovis's royal guard, and I ran off with C.C. They later caught up with us, at which point she saved my life and gave me Geass.

"As my younger self explained, this power granted us the ability to command people to do whatever we wished. I killed the guards, only to find that I was still trapped in the middle of what was essentially a war zone. Clovis had ordered for the purge of the Shinjuku ghettos. With the rebels' help, I ultimately fought his forces back, only to be thwarted by an experimental white and gold Britannian knightmare. I managed to make my escape, sneaked behind enemy lines and forced the massacre to end. Considering that I was still furious over Suzaku's perceived death, I then killed Clovis."

He had long ago realized that first decision to kill his brother had been influenced by his anger over his friend's loss. Looking back, the only regret he had was that he hadn't made it more painful.

"Fast-forward a few days, and Clovis's death was announced. His death was blamed on the convenient scapegoat, my best friend, Suzaku. Naturally, upon seeing that Suzaku was still alive and in trouble, I decided to help. To this end, I created the alias Zero, a man wearing a faceless mask, and once again enlisted the help of the rebels.

"My plan to help Suzaku was a success. Unfortunately, he didn't trust me and my methods and refused to join me when I offered." In hindsight, perhaps he should have told Suzaku the truth right then and there. He wondered if things would've worked out differently if he had. "He returned to his court-martial and was released due to me having taken the blame for the crime.

"It was at that time that Suzaku met Euphie. She was there to act as sub-viceroy to Area 11, or better said, more or less so that Cornelia could keep an eye on her while she cleaned the mess Clovis had made. They hit it off, he inadvertently managed to save her life and in gratitude, she enlisted him at Ashford Academy.

"During the following weeks, I continued my work as Zero, fighting Cornelia and the white knightmare that kept popping up. Unbeknownst to me, the pilot of said frame was Suzaku himself, but I only became aware of this after a fight with Tohdoh Kyoshiro and his Four Holy Swords revealed his true identity to all of Area 11. After said fight, Euphie also decided to make him her knight.

"I was unsure how to approach the situation, as some of the Black Knights were already making suggestions for his assassination, but I didn't want to use my Geass on him to force him into anything. My chance came when we were attacked by one of C.C.'s previous contractors, at which point I learned Suzaku's secret. Shortly after that, during another confrontation between Britannia's forces and the Black Knights, I confronted him about it. It was not one of my best moments, as he did not react well, and upon receiving orders from his superiors, he attempted to kill us both by trapping us in his then-incapacitated knightmare, while Schneizel's Avalon targeted it.

"Left with no other option, I was forced to use my Geass on him and ordered him to 'Live on'. Because of this, both of us escaped with our lives.

"It was also during this incident that Euphie found out for certain that I was Zero. Shortly after, in an attempt to bring peace to Area 11, she initiated the project she called the Special Administrative Zone of Japan, which was intended to be an area where Japanese people could live without persecution.

"I knew it would never work, so the day of the inauguration, I asked for a meeting with her, planning to put a Geass on her that would make her shoot me. In the end, I could not do it, and she convinced me to join her. But it was all for nothing, because at that exact moment, my Geass became uncontrollable, and I accidentally gave her the order to massacre the Japanese."

Before he'd died, Lelouch had had moments when he'd wondered if maybe, on some level, he'd meant to do that, if he had resented Euphie so much for taking Suzaku from him that the Geass had responded to him on a subconscious level. C.C. had assured him that runaway Geass did not work that way, and it truly had been only a dumb accident, caused by his horrible sense of humor and a twisted destiny.

In any case, he had, for the most part, made his peace with it. It still hurt, but not as much as it had in the past.

"She tried to fight the command, but could not resist it. The Britannians were only too happy to follow her lead when she started shooting the Japanese. And I was left with no choice but to kill her and used my mistake and the blood she had spilled because of it to start a massive uprising."

His other selves were, for the most part, familiar with all of this—except for, of course, Lulu, who was very, very still and very white. The Suzakus weren't much better off. Suzu looked like he was going to faint. Perhaps he was finally beginning to accept that this was truly real. The others looked grim and shaken. Zerozaku's breath caught. Out of all of them, he was the only one who had not yet learned the true circumstances of the massacre.

"Predictably, Suzaku did not react well to this. To make matters worse, an immortal named V.V. paid him a visit and explained to him the truth about Geass. He was thus left convinced that I had deliberately and brutally brainwashed my sister into becoming a murderer.

"Long story short, Suzaku eventually captured me and dragged me in front of my father. It was only then that both he and I learned that Charles had Geass himself—one of modifying memories. He erased all the memories I had of being a prince, of Zero, of Nunnally and Mother and turned me into Julius Kingsley, a strategist loyal to him and the Empire."

Several conspicuous glances were thrown toward Julius. Obviously, they were all wondering why he was there if he was a creation of Charles's Geass. Lelouch decided he didn't have time to explain all that right now.

"I spent a short time in Euro-Britannia, fighting against Europia United, with Suzaku reluctantly acting as my guard. For his service, he had been made the Knight of Seven, but my father apparently found it amusing to place me into his care.

"In any case, the brainwashing didn't quite hold, and after another sequence of events that nearly got me killed, I was once again taken to Pendragon, had my memories rewritten for a second time and placed back in Ashford to act as bait for C.C.

"Unbeknownst to me, my rebellion and my anger were of very little consequence to my father. He was only interested in me as a tool to get to the witch. He needed her code of immortality to activate an ancient device—a weapon that he said would 'slay the Gods'. The end result would've made all human individuality vanish. This was a plan he shared with his brother, Victor, or V.V., the same person who had spoken to Suzaku during the First Black Rebellion. Meanwhile, C.C.'s interest in me involved her desire to pass said code on, so that she could die.

"To this end, roughly a year after I was first captured, she tracked me down and broke through my amnesia. I became Zero once again. Only I found myself facing a quandary. Charles was using Nunnally against me, and as the new viceroy of Area 11, she was trying to institute the SAZ again.

"I could not give up on the rebellion, not after so much had happened, so I decided to leave Japan and move operations to the Chinese Federation. I encountered some success and even managed to free the Federation from the eunuchs. However, it didn't take long for things to escalate again. Shirley figured out the truth about me and was killed by a member of the Geass Order who thought was doing me a favor. I retaliated by attacking the Geass Order, which gave Father the opportunity to take V.V.'s code. I later confronted him and when I failed to kill him, attempted to trap him, only for him to manage to free himself.

"It all came to a head during the second battle for Tokyo. Desperate to keep Nunnally safe, I asked Suzaku for help, but he was followed by Schneizel's lap dog, Kanon. Believing Suzaku had betrayed me, I threw all caution out the window. In the ensuing battle, a powerful weapon was deployed. The FLEIJA, shot by Suzaku, under my Geass, killed thirty five million people, most of which were civilians. Nunnally was thought to be one of the victims as well.

"I was crushed and completely unprepared when the next day, the Black Knights turned on me. Apparently, Schneizel and Cornelia came to them, explained to them the whole story—turned even worse than it was. In exchange for Japan, the Black Knights agreed to hand me over.

"I managed to escape being executed by own people only through the sacrifice of the same boy who had killed Shirley, whom I hated with a passion. By then, I was half-mad with grief and decided to finally confront Charles. It was only when I did so that I realized the true extent of my situation, the nature of his plan—as well as the fact that Mother... yes, our own mother, was in on it, and was not as dead as I had been led to believe.

"Meanwhile, Suzaku was not doing so well himself as he had just processed the amount of damage he had done to Tokyo. He decided to switch loyalties and assassinate the emperor, in exchange for becoming Schneizel's Knight of One.

"This chain of events led us to face off against the emperor, while he basically attempted to destroy the world with C.C.'s somewhat reluctant help. I couldn't let him get away with it, with everything he had done... So I stopped him. And I killed him, and her too. I killed our mother."

He had absolutely no regrets about it. If anything, what he regretted was worshipping her memory for so long.

"But of course, that didn't fix any of our problems. Schneizel was the real political threat, not the Emperor. And now there was the FLEIJA, and all the people we had killed.

"So I came up with a plan. The Zero Requiem. Basically, it involved me taking over the world, with Suzaku as my knight, then Suzaku faking his death, and coming back to assassinate me as Zero. It worked beautifully, as you've probably surmised, considering the presence of Zerozaku. Unfortunately, it only worked for two years, before two Geass users named Shestal and Bitu decided it was a tremendous idea to bring me back for the dead and enslave my soul, by using Suzaku.

"And that pretty much covers everything up to what happened to all of you. Questions so far?"

Of course they had questions. How could they not? He had crammed two years' worth of traumatic events into a two-minute summary.

"Why did you never say anything?" Zerozaku asked quietly. "About Euphie's death being an accident?"

"Because accident or not, it was still my fault. Regrets and excuses didn't bring her back. Apologies wouldn't have made a difference."

As expected, Zerozaku shot to his feet and glowered at him. "It would've made a difference to me!"

"Yes, well... I know that now. It was a mistake. I should have been honest with you from the beginning. I'm sorry."

Zerozaku deflated and sat back down. Still by his side, Zerolouch kept a now awkward distance. At this stage, he'd yet to overcome the Euphie incident. He'd learn, eventually. He had to.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was Lulu who spoke next. "Mother... Did she really... Was she really working with Charles?" he asked.

He appeared to be trying to accept everything he was being told. Maybe he realized, on some level, that he was capable of doing everything Lelouch was saying that he had done. But their mother had always been a sore spot, and accepting that she had betrayed them was not so easy.

"Yes. She had a form of Geass as well that allowed her to survive the attack that caused Nunnally's paralysis. Don't mourn her. Truthfully, she couldn't have cared less about us. In fact, Nunnally's blindness was never real—it was induced by Father's Geass. And none of our suffering mattered, as long as they succeeded in their plan."

Suzu didn't ask anything at all. He still seemed in shock at what he had heard.

Lelouch ached for him, for them all, but there really was no other way than to give him this information. "I know this is hard to believe. It may be easier for you to think that it is all a dream of some kind. I will eventually show you everything that happened, in more detail, once you have adjusted a little more.

"But to do that, you have to understand what actually happened and what led you all to exist."

His words reached out to Suzu, as Lelouch had hoped they would. "Right. What... What actually... created us? What... created you?"

This time it was Lelouch's own Suzaku who replied. "Betrayal."

****

_A few years prior_

Lelouch cracked his eyes open surrounded about what appeared to be a mountain of rubble. He didn't remember much. The Zero Requiem... Dying at Suzaku's hands... Then... Suzaku, again, somehow? Suzaku had called out to him. He'd been... God, he'd been captured and killed.

With the memory of Suzaku dangling in chains still burning at the back of his mind, Lelouch took a frantic look around. It was only then that he spotted a both welcome and horrifying sight.

It was Suzaku, and he lay only a few feet away from Lelouch. He was covered in blood and bruises—but, against all odds, he was alive.

Lelouch crawled to his knight's side, skinning his knees and hurting himself in the jagged debris, but not caring in the slightest. He flinched when he took note of Suzaku's state. If there was an inch of him that didn't carry some kind of an abrasion, Lelouch couldn't see it. The severe gashes on his chest and arms were probably the least of their problems. Lelouch was no doctor, and he couldn't tell for sure, but he suspected some internal injuries were involved.

He needed to find someone who could help them, and who could treat Suzaku. There was just one problem with that. They appeared to be in the middle of nowhere. He was naked, and had no means of transportation. How the hell was he supposed to get them out?

The answer arrived of its own accord. The sound of approaching vehicles reached his ears seconds before a group of knightmares exploded out of the forest.

He must've been more distracted than he'd thought if he hadn't heard them sooner.

He would've probably tried to take cover somehow, except for one very simple thing. The machine that led the group was a crimson knightmare very familiar to him.

It was the Guren.

Granted, it was not the same one Suzaku had destroyed on the Damocles, but the look of it was the same and it was undoubtedly piloted by the same person.

Kallen. Oh, thank God.

He and Kallen might not have parted ways in an ideal manner, but they had still been close. If nothing else, she had always been willing to give him a chance to explain his actions. Lelouch had no idea what her role was in this post-Requiem world, but she was probably looking for Zero, and she'd want to help them.

The knightmares came straight at him. Lelouch waved them over, almost dizzy with the relief that he felt. "Over here."

The Guren stopped in front of him, but Lelouch wasn't intimidated by the sight of the massive, crimson, frame. "Lelouch?" Kallen asked. "But... How?"

Lelouch didn't really know himself, and neither did he have time to explain. Suzaku's condition was much too serious. "Kallen, thank God. I'll explain later, but right now, Suzaku is hurt and needs our help."

His words didn't have the desired effect. Kallen didn't react in any way, but the other pilots did.

"I see how it is now," Tohdoh said. "All this time... All this time we believed you were dead, that you planned the whole thing to atone for your deeds, when in fact, it was yet another lie. And here I thought... I thought we had been wrong..."

Shit.

"We were never wrong," one of the other pilots shouted. Yoshida? "Look at what he has done."

For the first time, Lelouch realized how the situation must look from their perspective. He was naked, in the middle of nowhere, and obviously unscathed. Suzaku, on the other hand, was seriously injured. He had never told them the truth about the Zero Requiem, although he'd believed, even before his death, that they'd eventually guess, at least bits and pieces.

Either way, they had never been all that fond of him, as evidenced by the fact that they'd been willing to sell him to Schneizel before the Requiem. That wouldn't have changed all that much now, despite his attempt to atone for his sins.

"Lelouch, how could you?" Kallen asked. "How could you betray us like this? I... I believed in you, damn it."

"I didn't betray you. This is all a huge misunderstanding. I need you to..."

He never got to finish the sentence. With the corner of his eye, he caught sight of one of the knightmares aiming its massive guns at him, and then everything went black.

****

Lelouch woke up to the sound of a whispered conversation. "You should keep your distance from him, Princess Cornelia."

"I'm not afraid of my brother, Viletta. He can't use his Geass on me as long as he can't see me, and we need the information."

Cornelia? What had happened? The last thing he remembered was... The Black Knights! Kallen and the others! How was he suddenly with Cornelia?

He couldn't see. His eyes were covered with some sort of visor. When he tried to move, he found that his limbs were strapped down as well.

"Cornelia!" he cried out. "What have you done?"

The sound of approaching footsteps alerted him to the fact that his sister was coming closer to wherever they had him. "That's my line, Lelouch. What have you done? What kind of foul spell have you cast on all the people you've enslaved?"

"Cornelia, you're not making any sense," he replied. "I haven't enslaved anyone." Well, not recently.

"Really? So Xingke's sudden change of heart and betrayal is just a coincidence. Nonnette just happened to turn on us. Weinberg just randomly decided to attack Kozuki as a joke."

What? How was that possible? Another Geass user? Come to think of it, Lelouch thought that maybe he could remember another person being with them at one point,  but he wasn't sure. "I'm not the only one who has Geass, Cornelia," he told his sister. "You know that."

"It's true. I know. And when I spoke to Kururugi, I believed him when he told me some other person must be the culprit. But Kururugi didn't know everything either, did he? You fooled him too. You fooled everyone."

Technically, that was both true and false. He had fooled everyone, in order to achieve the Requiem. But he suspected Cornelia wasn't referring to that, and he didn't know how to convince her otherwise.

He didn't know what to do. He felt so helpless, so trapped—like he'd been the time the Black Knights had first tried to kill him on the Ikaruga. But there was a big difference from that time. He still remembered holding Suzaku's motionless, broken body in his arms. Was his knight dead? He just... He needed to know.

"Cornelia... Tell me, is Suzaku all right?"

"Why? Why do you want to know? So you can revel in your triumph?" Cornelia let out a low breath. "You were my little brother, Lelouch. How could you become this... thing?"

Lelouch found that highly hypocritical, coming from the Witch of Britannia. But he didn't think saying that would help him any so instead he offered, "Cornelia, I'm just as confused about this as you are. I think there was another Geass user there, with me and Suzaku, but I don't expect you to believe me. I'm not asking you to let me go. I understand why you'd find this suspicious. All I want to know if Suzaku is okay."

"And I'll never tell you." Her voice suddenly turned calm, taking on an almost dead quality. "You know, Lelouch, I spent two years asking myself what had happened. What could have determined you to do something so horrible to Euphie. I didn't get my answers then, but I will get them now."

Under different circumstances, Lelouch wouldn't have revealed the truth about what had happened to Euphie. He had already decided to take the blame for what had happened, no matter what. But considering the situation, perhaps it would be for the best to not antagonize Cornelia further. "I never intended to hurt Euphie," he admitted. "It was all an accident."

"An accident?" Cornelia repeated in disbelief. "You made her massacre all those people... by accident? You shot her... by accident?"

Well, that last part had been on purpose, but he'd been trying to do the right thing. Not that it mattered now.

He was reluctant to explain how exactly the Geass worked to Cornelia, especially when she had him strapped down, so he compromised. "It was an unintentional command, yes. After that... I shot her because I couldn't see any other solution. I knew she wouldn't be able to live with what she had done, and it was better for me to grant her that peace."

"Presumptuous fool! What gave you the right to make that decision? They were just Numbers. So what if she had killed them? We could've found a way to fix it. Euphie's life was worth more than all of them put together."

Lelouch couldn't blame her for having that point of view, but he also knew Euphie wouldn't have seen things that way.

"And now, here you are again, tearing our world apart once more," Cornelia continued. "Haven't you taken enough from us? Gilbert, Lelouch? You had to take him, as well? And Viletta's husband as well..."

For some reason, that last sentence struck Lelouch as hilarious. Oh, yes, it must've been because, Guilford aside, Cornelia had just expressed her enduring hatred toward Numbers.

"Since when do you care about Numbers, sister?" he asked. "After all, they're not worth the dust on your shoes, and Ohgi is no different."

In hindsight, perhaps he should not have said that considering the fact that the man's wife was present. Apparently, Viletta was all right with Cornelia making derisive comments about Numbers as a whole, but Ohgi was Off Limits. "Kaname is ten times the man you are," she spat. "And you'll pay for what you've done to him."

Pain erupted through Lelouch as something metallic pierced his abdomen. Something inside Lelouch lashed out, his mind flashing with incomprehensible images of distant planets and children carrying the Geass mark.

Distantly, he heard Cornelia scream, "Euphie!" By her side, Viletta let out an inarticulate cry, which was soon echoed by the rest of the people around them.

Glass shattered. Furniture broke. Lelouch couldn't see any of it, not really. He perceived it on some level, but it was distant, coming through him through a haze of pain and confusion. The only thing he could do was lie there limply, still restrained, with Viletta's sword still embedded in his abdomen.

Truly, it was almost a mercy when he heard a gunshot, and knew no more.

****

"Are you sure this is going to hold him?"

"It appears to have been specifically designed to contain creatures such as him," the man replied. "It will hold him."

Lelouch listened to the conversation between Cornelia and her underling without making any move that would alert them that he was awake. He'd learned his lesson by now, although the price had been steep.

He didn't know how long it had been since he'd been captured by the Black Knights and given to Cornelia. Since then, he'd died so many times it wasn't even funny. The fiasco from those first meeting had happened again and again. Someone would come to try to get him to explain what he had done. They'd attempt to use forceful measures. His code—because it had become obvious that he had a code—would lash out and hurt them.

They'd tried everything to keep it back. They'd pulled out his eyes, only to have them grow back. They were sewn shut now, and so far, Lelouch had not been able to force himself to open them. Of course, it hadn't helped, as the code had nothing to do with eyesight, so when that hadn't worked, they'd tried to keep as much distance between them as possible when they hurt him.

They'd been very frustrated when they'd realized he could hurt a knightmare pilot if said knightmare came in direct physical contact with him, and had moved onto dismemberment.

That didn't really work either, as, like his eyes, his limbs grew back. But they had not given up.

Throughout it all, Lelouch had endured. He had been doing his best to learn how to master the code, to use its power at will so that he could make his escape. But he could feel his sanity cracking and he was losing more and more time, blacking out more and more often. He was still fighting, still trying, but he feared what would happen if this kept going on, and he feared the day they'd throw something at him that he and the code could not handle.

It seemed that his concerns had been justified. They had killed him some time earlier, and they appeared to have used the time this had bought them to transport him to a different location.

"I suppose there's some kind of poetic irony in it," Cornelia said. "For him to be sealed in the same capsule he used during his debut as Zero. All right. Seal it."

As he heard the hiss of the machine, Lelouch instantly panicked. There was something about that noise that scared him like nothing did before.

He still remembered the way it had held C.C., and what her state had been. If it was airtight, which seemed likely, he would be stuck in a virtual coffin, dying again and again from suffocation.

His panic made his code respond, and people cried out in the room as his power hit them. In his mind, Lelouch was screaming. _"Help me! No, don't! Suzaku! C.C.! Someone! Help me!"_

Another gunshot ended his protest, and his life, but not before his final, desperate plea could reach its intended destination.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How did the super self-indulgent self-cest fic become this, you ask? Umm... I don't know? Comment anyway to make L.L. feel better?


	7. Reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG guys, I'm so stoked. Did you see the new trailer? Obviously, this means this fic is officially not canon, but that was always going to happen. And it looks so good :D Anyway, while we engage in what will probably feel like a never-ending wait, here is an update! Enjoy!

_C.C._

C.C. calmly walked through corridors of the facility, hiding her face behind her black bangs and pretending she was reading the report in her hands. Voices rose around her, of doctors, nurses, security staff, all the people she had to bypass to get to her target.

She knew that if she was caught here, it was all over. They had already tried, numerous times, and it was by sheer good fortune that she had escaped.

If she'd had any sense, she would've gone to ground, waited this out. She was immortal and she knew this too would pass. People would forget. Things would get easier and they'd stop hunting her.

But by then, it would be much too late for Lelouch.

She didn't know where they had him. The things that she could sense from him through the world of C were disjointed and incoherent. But wherever it was, whatever his captors were doing to him wasn't pleasant.

She still remembered the time she had spent in Clovis's clutches. She refused to let Lelouch go through that. No, she owed him too much to allow that to happen.

Her original idea had been to go to Nunnally, but that hadn't worked out in the slightest. She hadn't been able to see Nunnally at all, as she was too well guarded. She had no idea to what extent Nunnally was informed of Lelouch's plight, but she had a feeling that, at this point, Nunnally was not that much in control of things anymore.

Considering that, C.C. now knew had only one option left, one option she hoped with all her heart would work.

In all of his life, Lelouch had had very few people capable of being loyal to him. Most of them were dead or incapacitated now. He'd lost Rolo and Shirley before the Requiem. Sayoko had been injured by Bitu while protecting Nunnally, and Jeremiah was missing. That left Suzaku.

Just the notion of mentioning Suzaku and loyalty in the same sentence was laughable. Suzaku had only ever been loyal to his goals, if that. But despite it all, despite everything Suzaku had done, C.C. still believed, no, she knew, that Suzaku had loved Lelouch.

Even in that way, the two of them had been alike. Both of them had loved Lelouch, and both of them had betrayed him, and Lelouch had forgiven both of them, but left them with the burden of surviving in a world without him.

Suzaku had been attacked by Shestal, which was why she had not sought him out until now. She had believed that, like the others, he would practically be a soulless husk. She could no override the effects of what Shestal and Bitu had done—she had already tried on some of the victims—and taking the chance to find Suzaku had not been worth it.

That had changed recently, when she had sensed Lelouch call out to her. There had been something else in the call. She didn't know what it was, but it told her that Suzaku was not yet beyond her reach.

He would help her. He had to, because she did not know who else she could trust.

Sneaking into the restricted wing of the hospital was much more difficult than anything she'd done so far, but she refused to be thwarted. She'd managed to acquire the access codes, as well as a passkey, beforehand. A virus in the camera system would keep the technicians occupied long enough to miss the sole nurse who was out of place. Her disguise would not stand up to careful scrutiny, but her hope was that they wouldn't think to look until it was too late.

It was, after all, the middle of the day. Who'd think anyone would try to sneak in, now of all times?

As she walked, she spotted a group of patrolling Black Knights and ducked into a shadowy corner. "What do you suppose will happen if none of them wake up?" one of them asked. C.C. was pretty sure it was Minami.

"I think it's clear at this point that the chances of that happening are very slim," his partner—which turned out to be Sugiyama—replied. "Zero at least... I mean this Zero... It seems very unlikely."

"But we have another Zero now. A better one. So there's that."

C.C. clenched her hands into fists. A better Zero her foot. As if any of them could ever hold a candle to Lelouch, or even Suzaku.

Lelouch should have left them all to die in Shinjuku.

As the duo walked off, C.C. shook off the irrational resentment and forced herself to focus. Suzaku's room was not much further. She just needed to make his way there, and she'd be fine.

She ran into a few more groups of Black Knights, but she managed to avoid being physically spotted. Unfortunately, her luck ran out mere ten minutes after she had entered the secure facility. Alarms started to blare, and a voice announced C.C.'s doom through the speakers. "Intruder alert. Intruder alert."

Too late to turn back now. Abandoning all thought of subterfuge, C.C. continued on her way, heading toward Suzaku's room. If this worked, it would not matter that she'd gotten caught.

Three Black Knights caught up with her. "There! It's the witch!"

A rain of bullets flooded the corridor. For the most part, C.C. managed to avoid them, but one of them nicked her arm. In the respite her injury bought them, more security rushed at her, trying to pin her down. But she did not give up. Her gun was already in her blood-slicked hand and she shot with unerring accuracy. When one of the men grabbed her arm, her code instantly immobilized him.

She did not have time for this.

In truth, C.C. didn't know how she managed to make her way to her destination. Maybe it was out of sheer good fortune. Maybe it was because they just didn't realize what they were up against and, through their attempts to bodily immobilize her, kept hurting themselves.

Either way, the reason was irrelevant. The only thing that mattered was that she reached the right door. Two quick gunshots handled the guards who were supposed to man it.

From there, it was as easy as inputting the correct code and bursting into the room. The sight of the motionless Suzaku didn't fill her with too much confidence, but he was her last hope.

Without hesitation, she knelt by his bedside and retrieved a syringe. She had a theory of the reasons for Suzaku's state. If she was right, his enduring coma could not be just because of Shestal. There was something else at work.

She injected the liquid into his exposed arm. There was no visible reaction, but C.C. hadn't expected one. The substance was not a miracle cure. It was only meant to neutralize any sedatives in Suzaku's bloodstream that could get in the way of her plan.

Once she was done with that, she proceeded to the next step and pressed her mouth to his. Instantly, her code connected with his mind, and his eyes shot open.

She had been right.

She broke away, ecstatic with her success. Suzaku took one breath, then another, then said, "C.C., give me Geass. They're going to pay for what they've done."

C.C. met his coldly furious green eyes and was reminded of the same expression on a very different young man's face. She was more than happy to comply with Suzaku's request.

****

_The White Reaper_

For as long as he'd been alive, Suzaku had always been told that people in a coma were unaware of anything that happened around them. Suzaku hadn't really known if that was true or not, but now, he thought that, if it had been—at least under normal circumstances—he might have deemed it both a curse and a blessing.

Being aware of something, without being able to do anything about it, was the most horrible ordeal in his life. It was an ordeal he acknowledged as necessary, as it opened his eyes to things he should have seen much sooner.

He remembered a time, when he had called Lelouch shortly after Euphie's death and asked him, "Have you ever hated someone enough to become a murderer?"

At the time, he truly had felt that he could never hate anyone more than he had Lelouch, for what he had done to Euphie. He had been so very wrong.

He had been so very wrong about so many things—more than he had ever believed. The Requiem had been a huge mistake, but it had taken too long for him to realize it.

He didn't know everything that had happened after Shestal. One moment, he was in Shestal's facility, desperately hoping he could somehow stop the crazed Geass user from enslaving Lelouch's soul, and the next, he was waking up in a hospital, with Cecile by his bedside.

Instinctively, he reached for his mask, but it wasn't there. Berating himself for being an idiot—the mask was hardly necessary around Cecile anyway—he focused on his priorities. "Miss Cecile?" he asked. "What happened? Where am I?"

"It's all right, Suzaku," Cecile said with a soft smile. "You're fine. You're safe."

Suzaku believed that, but he wasn't the one he was worried about. "What happened to Lelouch?"

Cecile went very quiet and still. "Miss Cecile?" Suzaku insisted. "Please tell me. Where is he?"

"You don't need to worry about that," she said. "It's being taken care of. You need to rest and recover."

She probably meant that to sound reassuring, but she utterly failed. Something in her tone wasn't right. Suzaku opened his mouth to protest, but she had already pressed a button that activated some kind of mechanism.

The IV he was hooked into beeped, and Suzaku grew very sleepy.

He closed his eyes, and for months, didn't open them again.

It would have perhaps been more merciful if whatever sedative had been in the IV had simply put him to sleep, but what happened was entirely different. His consciousness was transported into another place, into a different body.

The room he was in appeared to be a medical facility in some kind. At first, he was confused about it, and about the presence of certain people he had known throughout his life as Zero, but the mystery was promptly solved, in a way that changed him forever.

"You know, I didn't expect this of you, Sir Farnese," Lelouch drawled. "You always seemed to prize honor so much. You defended those helpless European civilians when my plan would have led to their demise. And now, here you stand, supporting torture. Where is the honor in that?"

Suzaku could not see him, and the words felt strangely like they were being spoken through his own mouth, yet not. The disconcerting feeling mattered somewhat less than the rest of their situation.

The man Lelouch was speaking to, the Grandmaster of the Knights of St. Raphael, scanned his face with hooded eyes. "You are right. There is no honor in this, and I do not enjoy it. But I do what I must, because someone has to."

He took a deep breath and nodded at the nearby surgeon. "Let's start from the top. Tell us everything you know about Geass."

Lelouch told the man nothing. And Suzaku watched as Lelouch laughed in the face of his torturer. He watched as the butcher sliced his flesh open, taking advantage of the fact that his wounds healed over and over again. He watched, and he hated them all so very much. He hated himself more than anything, because he was stuck here, and there was nothing he could do to help. He couldn't feel any physical pain, but that only made it worse.

At one point, Lelouch had enough, and he lashed out against his torturers. Both Andrea Farnese and the rest of the people in the room collapsed, clutching their temples and screaming.

The episode ended with a guard putting a bullet through Lelouch's brain, but it would repeat itself over and over, in increasingly more grotesque ways, over the following months.

Sometimes, it wasn't Farnese who came to see Lelouch. Often, it was Viletta, and she was far more vicious. On rarer occasions, it was Cornelia, and when that happened, it was usually bad news.

Cornelia never stayed long. She tended to authorize an increase in the intensity of the experiments, and then leave before it even started. She was there the moment they first pulled out Lelouch's eyes, though, and she just stood there, saying nothing, impassively watching the scene. If Suzaku had not been a disembodied spirit lurking at the back of Lelouch's consciousness, he would have killed her on the spot.

By then, Suzaku had already surmised that Shestal's mechanism must've created some kind of connection between Lelouch's mind and his own. Unfortunately, this did not help him much. All his attempts to contact Lelouch had been met with resounding failures, and he could not affect the physical world in any way.

To make matters worse, Lelouch was falling apart. Every single time he woke up from one of his deaths, he was different. Sometimes, he didn't even seem to remember anything about Geass at all, and that never went over well with his captors.

At first, Suzaku didn't understand what was going on, but then the day arrived when the Britannians strapped into a kind of X-cross looking machine.

Once again, Suzaku could do nothing but watch... Under his very eyes, Lelouch was literally ripped apart, his limbs torn from his body. And something broke inside Suzaku, his already strained mind shattering.

After that... Everything was a jumble. Sometimes, he was himself. Sometimes, he wasn't. He blindly scrambled for Lelouch, more desperate to reach him than ever. He struggled against unseen hands, trying to help him, only to run into the invisible wall that separated them.

On occasion, he could see flashes of his past self, clawing through the darkness, stumbling around in desperation. Other times, he caught fleeting images of Lelouch, almost every version of him  that Suzaku had known. He could make no sense of it, and could not find an escape.

The light came in the shape of C.C. He saw her reach out to him and blindly flailed for her hand.

When he opened his eyes, he found himself in the same bed he had been before, but this time, with the witch by his side. "C.C., give me Geass. They're going to pay for what they've done."

C.C. didn't ask any questions. She simply took his hand and offered him a contract, the same contract that had presumably changed his life. "In exchange for a promise to fulfill my wish, I offer you the Power of the King."

Suzaku accepted the power without a second's thought. Once, he had hated this tainted ability more than anything in the world, but now, he no longer cared about the details. It was a tool, and he needed all the help he could get to find Lelouch and make all of them suffer like Lelouch had.

He opened his mouth to thank her for having come for him. He never got the chance to utter one single word.

All of a sudden, the door opened. A group of Black Knights rushed into the room. C.C. did not move away in time. It was Tamaki of all people who shot her.

She died right there, by his bed, slumping onto the ground in a lifeless heap. If Suzaku hadn't already hated the world to an almost obscene intensity, that would've settled it.

"That was a mistake," he whispered.

All eyes turned to him. Strangely, it appeared that they hadn't realized he was awake until then. Perhaps they hadn't noticed because C.C. had been standing in front of him.

"Zero, you're awake," Sugiyama said.

"Obviously. Although, not because of any of you."

As he looked at them, Suzaku remembered everything he had witnessed, everything Lelouch had gone through. His hatred came bursting out of him and his left eye lit up with Geass.

Every single person in the room went down, screaming and writhing in agony.

Suzaku smirked. "Well, that's going to be useful. I wonder how much I can push it before they lose their minds."

_"Not to ruin your fun or anything,"_ a voice said at the back of his consciousness _, "but I'm pretty sure we don't have time for that."_

_"More of them will come, and there's only so much the 'Live on' Geass can do."_

_"They sedated us once. They can do it again."_

Suzaku did not know how to address any of the voices, but he decided that they were right. If Cecile had been the one to first drug him, he could not trust anyone here to not try to knock him out. He was strong, but he was not superhuman.

With that thought in mind, Suzaku slid out of the bed, fully intending to take C.C.'s body and hightail out of there. The moment he tried to stand, his knees went weak, and he fell back. Shit. This could be a problem.

****

_Days later_

"This is pointless, C.C. I can't focus. I can't reach him. We're wasting time."

"I know that's how it feels like, believe me, but we can't just run in. If we do, we'll just get caught, and that won't help Lelouch. Trust me on this, will you? Sit your ass down, and let's try again."

Gritting his teeth, Suzaku complied. He knew that C.C. was right, that in his state, he couldn't physically help Lelouch. The only reason he'd managed to escape the facility of the Black Knights to begin with was because C.C. had woken up in time to support him. He'd used his new Geass to clear the way and she had pretty much dragged him out, since his muscles had refused to work properly.

Since then, they had holed up in one of C.C.'s numerous hideouts. Suzaku had started to work out in an attempt to recover from having been in a coma for so long, but it grated on him horribly to know that even now, he was still stuck.

C.C. appeared to have found a solution for this, but it just wasn't working for them.

"All right," C.C. said. "Clear you mind. Stop fighting them for a moment. Think about Lelouch. Only him."

When she looked at him, it sounded like she wasn't just speaking to Suzaku, but also to the other four personalities that now lurked at the back of his mind and randomly popped out when it was most inconvenient. He hated them all as much as he hated himself, if not more, but if they could agree on something, it was that they needed to help Lelouch.

He could do this. They could do this.

He focused on the golden glow of C.C.'s eyes and then thought about different ones, about the amethyst gaze of the man he'd always loved, even when there had been so much hate between them. _Come on, Lelouch. Where are you?_

At the back of his mind, a younger Suzaku remembered their reunion in the Shinjuku tunnels. Another remembered the day he and Lelouch had met up at the shrine and had decided to work together for Nunnally's sake. Yet another remembered their agreement in the world of C and the day he had first stood by Lelouch's side as his knight. The final one remembered their very last meeting, when Lelouch had handed him the mask of Zero, Lelouch's soft chuckle as he spoke of his own death, and later, his peaceful smile, as Suzaku drove a sword through his chest.

There were so many memories, of so much sorrow and pain, but it was that pain that gave Suzaku strength, that pain that fueled his anger, his hatred and his love.

Something seemed to snap into place. There was a flash, and all of a sudden, he was tumbling through space, falling through a nothingness filled with screaming masks.

He landed face-first on a rocky terrain that looked an awful lot like the entry way of the shrine. Once upon a time, Lelouch had knelt in front of him in a much too similar spot. He hated himself even more for having conjured this spot at this exact moment.

But if C.C. was right, this wasn't real, and he didn't have time to think about past mistakes and regrets.

Gritting his teeth, Suzaku got up, whereupon he found himself facing four different versions of himself, all wearing different clothes, all staring at him with expressions that ranged between disgust, hatred and wariness.

Suzaku suspected his own face held the same look, and he would have probably lashed out in some way at his other selves. He was actually very tempted to see if his Geass worked in this space, but he decided against checking.

"Did you all hear what we're supposed to do?" he asked instead.

"More or less," the Suzaku dressed as Zero said. "We need to... find a way to pull Lelouch's mind into the world of C?"

Suzaku nodded. "C.C. says it's possible, that she could seal her consciousness off from her physical form in order to isolate herself from outside pain. Lelouch does not know how to do it, so he's likely stuck in a circle of dying over and over again with no respite. C.C.'s contract with him was severed when he received the code. But due to the bond Shestal accidentally created between us and Lelouch, we can fix that.

"Obviously, I can't do it on my own. Someone needs to make sure our body functions on the outside, so that we can keep looking for Lelouch. But it will take time for me and C.C. to find him, and considering what we've seen, it might be time Lelouch doesn't have."

"We're with you," Knight of Zero Suzaku said. "I think together, and with C.C.'s help we can do this."

"We have to," the youngest Suzaku whispered. "There is no other option."

Knight of Seven Suzaku clenched his jaw, shaking with the same anger Suzaku himself felt. "Lelouch has already suffered enough. Too much."

"It's a deal then. We'll work together to save Lelouch."

And after that... After Lelouch was safe, Suzaku would probably find some way to test his newly acquired Geass on his other selves. They all had it coming.


	8. Progress

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! I managed an update. And it only took me like... 3 weeks. This will probably be a pre-Christmas present, since I doubt I'll be able to update anything again before that. So enjoy! Even if it's not very... Christmasy :))

_L.L._

Lelouch did not know how long he stayed trapped in the pod. Everything was a blur, and in the suffocating—in more than one way—darkness, he had no method to measure the passage of time.

He had been right to be afraid. The capsule was airtight, and once the oxygen inside was consumed, it was practically a coffin, a trap he could not escape, in which he kept dying, a prisoner of his own immortality.

He wasn't always conscious. Or at least, he didn't think so. It was a little hard to tell, what with the whole, constant death thing. But sometimes, he felt like there might have been moments during which he didn't wake up immediately after his last death.

He was probably going mad. Hell, there was no 'probably' about it. He was mad, as three quarters of the time, a cacophony of wild voices sounded in his head, most of them screaming, offering a myriad of solutions to their predicament.

He did manage to figure out that it was more efficient to kill himself in a way that was faster and more difficult for the code to fix than to wait for the suffocation to do it and have the cycle restart immediately. Unfortunately, he was still bound. The inside of the capsule had nothing he could conveniently stab himself with, so half the time, he ended up knocking himself out by banging his head against the metal.

On occasion, he wondered how long C.C. had spent in the capsule before he and Suzaku had come along, and wished he could go back in time to kill Clovis more slowly. Most of the time, he wondered if C.C. and Suzaku even remembered him, or if they hated him too because of everything he had done.

When he finally got his answer to that latter question, he almost couldn't believe it.

A light reached out to him into the darkness of his capsule, or maybe, into that of his mind. _"Lelouch,"_ a familiar voice whispered. _"Lelouch. Come. Come to me."_

Lelouch would have probably followed that sound even if it hadn't beckoned him to do so. He would have recognized it anywhere, and he trusted it above all else.

For the first time in what seemed like forever, Lelouch opened his eyes and... saw.

For some strange reason, he was in front of the Kururugi Shrine. But he was not alone.

Nine other people were there, and four of them were almost identical to him. They were all Lelouch, except they were obviously younger and wearing outfits Lelouch had worn at different times of his life. His Ashford uniform, the Zero suit, his Julius Kingsley outfit and the Demon Emperor robes.

The other five people present appeared to be similar incarnations of Suzaku. Euphie's knight, the knight of Seven, Lelouch's own knight, Zero, and one other—who was dressed in a straightjacket identical to Lelouch's own.

Lelouch didn't remember ever being so confused in his life. "Suzaku? What in the world is going on?"

He wasn't addressing the question to a particular... persona, but it was the youngest Suzaku who replied. "It worked. Thank God. It worked."

"We did say we could do it together," the Suzaku dressed as the Knight of Zero added.

"All right, focus," the oldest Suzaku said. "Now is not the time to feel smug. Lelouch, here is the situation."

As Suzaku proceeded to explain what had happened, Lelouch felt torn between hope, disbelief and dismay. On one hand, Suzaku and C.C. had remembered him, and had gone through so much effort to find him. On the other, no one else was on their side—not even Nunnally, perhaps—and the chances of Suzaku and C.C. finding him were not very high.

Still, he could not give up. He and Suzaku had defeated impossible odds before. They could do it again.

"All right. So I'm assuming that if you brought me here, you have a solution to our situation?"

The oldest Suzaku nodded. "There's no way to keep your body from waking up, not right now, but through our connection, we will make sure you won't mentally be aware, so you won't feel the pain."

A sudden suspicion niggled at the back of Lelouch's mind. "And how exactly do you intend on doing that?"

The Suzakus fell conspicuously silent. Horror dawned through Lelouch, and all of his other selves had the same reaction.

"No!" his youngest self said. "Suzaku, no! I can't let you do this!"

"Better us than you," the Suzaku dressed as Zero replied. "You've been through enough."

"Besides, we might be able to cope with it better," the youngest Suzaku added with almost disturbing cheer. "We've been wanting to die for years."

Lelouch doubted that would make a difference. Nobody, not even the suicidal Suzaku, would be able to cope with dying over and over again.

The Lelouch dressed in the emperor robes shook his head. "Suzaku, this is a horrible idea. There has to be another way."

"Lelouch, I'm your knight," Knight of Zero Suzaku said tightly. "This is my job. Let me do it. Let me protect you, at least now."

"It's not forever," the oldest Suzaku added. "C.C. will come to show you how to manipulate this space, so that you'll learn to isolate yourself from your body without us needing to occupy your body."

"Please, Lelouch," Knight of Seven Suzaku offered. "Let us do this for you."

Lelouch shared a look with his other selves. He wondered if this was how Suzaku had felt when Lelouch had asked him to go through the Zero Requiem.

If it had been even half as heartbreaking, Lelouch had no idea how he'd ever make it up to Suzaku.

His Julius Kingsley persona actually managed to come up with something. "All right," he said. "But once we get out of here, I'm giving you like... a million blowjobs. To compensate for everything we didn't do before."

The Suzakus spluttered and went red in embarrassment. Lelouch reminded himself not to make assumptions or get his hopes up. Just because he had always wanted Suzaku and Suzaku had come to help him, it didn't mean that Suzaku desired him sexually.

"If that's what you want," he amended, "of course. I wouldn't want you to—"

The Suzaku dressed in a straitjacket grabbed his arm, cutting him off mid-sentence. "Of course," he said, pulling Lelouch into his arms. "Of course it's what I want. It's what I've always wanted."

When Suzaku brushed their mouths together, Lelouch met him half-way. The only people he had kissed in life had been girls, and they'd always been the one to initiate. Shirley. C.C. Kallen. He had cared about all of them, some more than others, but for some reason, it was different with Suzaku.

Unfortunately, they didn't have time for more than a light peck. As if the world itself was against Lelouch finally letting out some of his pent-up sexual frustration, a familiar female voice sounded behind them. "As much as I hate to interrupt you, you don't have time for making out now."

Lelouch reluctantly broke away from Suzaku and turned to face C.C. Over his shoulder, he caught sight of his other selves doing the same thing.

"Our body is waking up, isn't it?"

Come to think of it, he was beginning to feel a little light-headed. Wonderful. God, sometimes he really hated the code. He'd never empathized with C.C. more.

His witch nodded glumly. "It's time to start our little project."

"I suppose that means I'm up, then," the youngest Suzaku said with a small smile. "Wish me luck."

He didn't wait for Lelouch to actually wish him anything. Instead, he walked past the gates of the shrine, and his figure dissipated into thin air, as if swallowed up by an unseen force.

The mere image made Lelouch change his mind and want to rush after him. He knew what was waiting for Suzaku beyond those gates, what Suzaku would have to go through so that Lelouch's mind would not have to endure it.

He should have never agreed to it.

"Lelouch, now is not the time to change your mind," C.C. said, as ever seeing straight through him. "Suzaku will buy us some time. Your job will be to learn how to handle your code. I have no doubt you can do this. You commanded the world of C once, remember?"

Yes, Lelouch remembered. He had stopped the Ragnarok Connection simply by wishing it. He could do this too.

He and Suzaku could do anything together. Five versions of them, no matter how fractured they might be? There was no limit to what they could accomplish.

He took one look at the somewhat discombobulated group and made a split-second decision. "All right. While C.C. and I deal with that, everyone else decides on a name they can use. I'm going to go by L.L. And then, no matter what, we will make this work."

****

_One month later, Pendragon_

_Cornelia_

Cornelia walked into her war room, with Zero following in her wake. The anomalous presence grated on her just as much as it always did. Guilford had always been the only one she trusted to have her back, for more years than she could count, and despite the fact that this was not the Zero who had taken so much from her, that didn't mean all that much in the big picture. Nevertheless, this Zero still served justice, and still remained the figure she needed to preserve order. They had to work together, whether she liked it or not.

The rest of her team were already in the war room. Farnese had flown in from St. Petersburg this morning, and Nonnette had joined them as well. Kanon was there, although Schneizel was not. While he had not been hit by the same malady that had taken all of the others, he had become increasingly quiet and unresponsive as of late, like a puppet with his strings cut.

Cornelia had actually thought that Suzaku Kururugi's disappearance would make Schneizel awaken from his trance once again, which was part of the reason why they had created this new Zero. She still remembered her brother's actions toward the end of the war and had feared what would happen should he decide to no longer cooperate. In the end, it had not mattered, and Schneizel had become another of Lelouch's victims.

Some days, she wondered if it was Lelouch's vengeance. She wondered if maybe she deserved it, for everything she had done to him.

"Any news of our missing persons case?" Zero asked as soon as the door closed behind them.

Cornelia shook her head. "There's no sign of them. They've completely disappeared."

"I'm not surprised," Zero replied. "That witch has always been resourceful. Has there been any activity around Nunnally?"

"No," Nonnette replied. "The empress is safe, but it doesn't seem C.C. has tried to contact her again."

Nunnally was also not very happy with them, but that had long ago stopped mattering. Without Zero there to watch her and provide her with authority and advice, she didn't have much power. It had been easy for Cornelia to push her aside and take over, even if only in practice, not in name.

After all, Nunnally might be an empress of peace, but she was still the sister of the Demon Emperor, and still the person who'd launched FLEIJA missiles at Britannian armies during the civil war. Not everyone had forgotten that little tidbit.

Of course, things might have been entirely different had Nunnally been able to walk. But she wasn't, and while it was uncharitable for Cornelia to think such things of her little sister, she had abandoned all hope for Nunnally when it had become obvious that she couldn't have cared less if Lelouch was indeed the one doing all these horrible things, as long as he was still alive.

"What is our next course of action then?" Kanon asked. "We cannot simply let them get away."

He sounded frustrated, and Cornelia could not blame him for it. In his heart, he probably still hoped that he could find some solution to Schneizel's predicament. Or maybe at this point, he just wanted revenge, just like she did, for Guilford and Euphie, just like Viletta did, for her Eleven husband, just like the Tianzi did, for Xingke, and just like countless others whom Lelouch had hurt, whose families he had destroyed. And even if she knew that up to a point, she was just as monstrous as Lelouch, she still refused to give up.

"We keep searching. Everyone leaves traces, no matter how good they are at hiding. C.C. and Kururugi will be no different."

Cornelia had found the headquarters of the Geass Order once, while she had been on her quest to clear Euphie's name. She could track down one witch and one practically handicapped knight. Granted, there was still the matter of the strange new ability Kururugi had, some kind of Geass he could apparently use to inflict pain. But that didn't concern her overmuch. Even Geass had its limits, after all.

Zero tensed slightly when Cornelia mentioned Suzaku Kururugi's name out loud. It was almost amusing to see. Cornelia certainly couldn't understand it.

But then again, she had not been able to understand Kallen Kozuki even before the girl had picked up the mask, which was why she had not shared her more questionable interrogation procedures on Lelouch with her. Despite the recent developments with Weinberg, the girl might still preserve some feelings for Cornelia's brother, and her deciding to free Lelouch would not end well for anyone.

No, it was best for Lelouch to stay where he was, in that capsule, where nobody would ever find him, and where he would never be able to hurt anyone again. He had already proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was completely and utterly insane, and while Cornelia might not revel in everything she had done to him, she still believed that he had deserved it.

"We'll find them eventually," she added. "They won't be able to hide forever."

"Oh, we're not hiding," a voice suddenly said from the shadows.

Cornelia turned, instinctively reaching for her pistol. She did not get the chance to take hold of her weapon. Pain unlike anything she had experienced before exploded over her, assaulting each and every one of her nerve endings.

She had thought Lelouch's mental attacks were painful, and they certainly had been. More than once, she'd been forced to relive the grief she had experienced upon learning of Euphie's death. This was different. This was purely physical, but so extensive that it threatened to shut down her mind altogether.

The torture stopped before she could actually lose consciousness, but Cornelia still found herself unable to move. Helpless, she just lay there, twitching, as Suzaku Kururugi emerged from his hiding place, followed by his accomplice.

When had he even gotten there and how? He and C.C. appeared to be wearing foot soldier uniforms. Had they just snuck in? Surely not.

As if he could guess her thoughts, Kururugi smiled at her, a twisted little grin that didn't seem to fit the face of the man she had first known as Euphie's well-meaning knight. "You really should have fortified the defenses of the palace a little more, Cornelia. You do realize I helped designed the place, don't you?"

Actually, that hadn't occurred to Cornelia, which, in hindsight, had been stupid. But how could she have known? Kururugi was no architect, and he didn't have Lelouch's genius.

"Lelouch left plans to make sure this place would be secure for Nunnally's rule," Kururugi drawled. "There are also some nooks and crannies included, allowing me to sneak in and out at leisure. But that doesn't really matter right now. Tell me... Where is Lelouch?"

"I won't tell you anything," Cornelia replied between gritted teeth. "He's beyond your aid anyway."

Kururugi's strange smile faded and his expression turned into a more familiar frown. "You know, I believed that once too, Princess Cornelia. It was a mistake. But my long line of mistakes is nothing compared to what you have done. Answer the question, and I might do you the credit of killing you quickly, instead of taking my time."

"Suzaku... You can't be serious," Kozuki gasped out by Cornelia's side. "Why are you doing this? Lelouch... Lelouch has gone mad."

At one point, she had lost her mask. Or maybe she had removed it. It made no difference. She, like all of the others, could do nothing.

"Oh, I know that, Kallen," Kururugi replied. "But we were both mad, even before, and nobody ever gave a damn."

His expression twisted into a snarl of outrage and pain exploded over Cornelia again. "Nobody ever cared. About everything we had to suffer. And it would've been fine, if it had just been me, but no. You had to take him."

With every sentence he spoke, the pain intensified, and she was not the only target of it. In fact, in the end, she was not the one to provide Suzaku with the information he sought. Andrea Farnese was the one to spill Lelouch's location in fractured, barely comprehensible sentences.

"Thank you for your cooperation," C.C. said once he was done. "Now, as much as I'd like to prolong this little game, I'm afraid Lelouch is waiting."

Just like that, she pulled out a pistol and shot Andrea, Nonnette and Kanon in the head. Meanwhile, Suzaku made his way to Cornelia's side, that strange smirk once again on his face. "Oh, don't worry. You won't die. We're not done with you yet."

He was still smiling down at her when the witch rested her boot against her face, and everything went black.

****

_The White Reaper_

"All right. Time to go."

Suzaku hoisted Cornelia's unconscious body over his shoulder, not for the first time cursing Britannian genetics for having made the princess so goddamn heavy. Fortunately, in the month since C.C.'s rescue of him, he had recovered most of his physical strength so he could carry her to the transport, but it was still not the easiest task he had performed.

It also made it impossible for him to carry Kallen as well. This was a problem. She wasn't strictly necessary to his quest, not like Cornelia was, but she was a threat, and he couldn't just execute her like he and C.C. had with the others. Still, he couldn't just leave her here either. She was much too dangerous for that. Maiming, perhaps?

Fortunately, he did not have to resort to any of the more creative methods that had popped into his head. The door opened, and in walked Jeremiah, pushing Nunnally's wheelchair along. "Everything went well, I take it, Orange?" C.C. asked.

"Yes, Lady C.C. However, hostile agents may detect our presence any moment now. I could not be as discreet as you and Sir Kururugi."

It really was fortunate that C.C. had managed to track him and Anya down. This would've been far more difficult without them.

"Suzaku, what is going on?" Nunnally predictably asked. "Is this about Lelouch? Is he truly alive?"

"Not now, please, Nunnally. We'll tell you everything, but first, we have to get out of here."

He noticed Nunnally's eyes linger on Cornelia's body on his shoulder, and he half expected her to say something about it. She never did. "All right," she replied instead. "I can wait."

By now, C.C. had used her code to ensure that Kallen would not fight them. Orange picked her up and draped her over his back, while C.C. took Nunnally's wheelchair over for him.

Together, the small group made their way through the hallways of the Britannian palace. They didn't have much time at their disposal to make their escape. While it had not been that complicated to sneak into the palace, that had been before they'd had Nunnally with them, as well as two very conspicuous, high-profile captives.

Anya was providing them with a bit of a delay, as she had managed to hijack the cameras, but there was only so much she would be able to stall.

As expected, they ran into several pockets of guards, which Suzaku quickly took care of with his Geass. He was starting to feel the strain from it, though. While he normally did not mind the pain his Geass inflicted upon him whenever he himself inflicted pain, C.C. had already warned him that it could get incapacitating if he wasn't careful. Also, the last thing they needed was for him to lose control of it like Lelouch had. He had enough on his plate with the perpetual annoyances lurking at the back of his mind.

_"Sayoko might've come in handy right about now,"_ Lancelot said, perhaps in response to Suzaku's own thoughts. Suzaku got the feeling that the comment had very little to do with Sayoko and more to do with the fact that Lancelot felt he might've done better than Suzaku himself, which was irritating in the extreme.

_"A lot of people might have come in handy,"_ Zerozaku replied.

_"You should have just killed Kallen, though,"_ Sir Kururugi piped up. _"She definitely won't be included in that category."_

_"It hardly matters,"_ Suzaku himself said. _"We need to hurry. The Britannians might still figure out what we've done and move Lelouch. If that happens, there's no telling when and how we'll be able to find him again. So shut up and let me focus."_ It was unlikely, considering how inaccessible Lelouch's location was, but stranger things had happened.

His other selves shut up. As much as they resented one another, they were all aware of what was at stake here. If they lost the element of surprise which they had used here, their next attempt to find Lelouch might not go as smoothly.

The thought made his regular concern for Lelouch return with a vengeance. There was no guarantee Lelouch's control on his code would hold. He had worked very hard with C.C. to develop the skill, but it was still new. Suzu was keeping an eye on Lelouch's selves, to make sure accidents didn't happen, and so far, they'd been lucky, but Suzaku—in all of his incarnations—was very unwilling to take further chances. Unfortunately, since he did not have a convenient code like C.C., he could not speak with his fifth persona while Suzu was in their isolated part of the world of C, which left him unable to check up on the Lelouchs.

_"I'll go see if everything is okay and come back,"_ Lancelot offered. _"Lelouch wanted us to keep him posted anyway."_

_"Right. Go ahead."_

Suzaku didn't exactly feel anything or anyone disappear from his head, but there was a slight twinge as his other self accessed the world of C. He was actually a little jealous, since he'd have liked to speak to Lelouch personally.

Unfortunately, that wasn't possible, not yet. He was in charge with finding Lelouch's body. Once that happened, though... Oh, he'd make sure he'd always be the one to be with Lelouch.

Thankfully, Suzaku's other personalities remained cooperative and the palace staff remained incompetent, so Suzaku and his group reached their transport without incidents of significance. It appeared Orange had already dealt with the people manning the hangars, because Anya was already waiting for them on board the vessel, ready for the flight. She snapped a photo of them when they entered the aircraft—force of habit, Suzaku supposed—and said nothing.

Nothing needed to be said anyway. By the time Anya had saved her photo in her journal, C.C. had already input the coordinates of their destination into the systems of their transport and had slid into the piloting seat.

"Where are we headed, Lady C.C?" Orange asked once they were in the air.

"Can you tell me what is going on now?" Nunnally added. "Cornelia has been keeping so much from me, and I've been unable to do anything. It's so frustrating."

"Cornelia blamed Lelouch for the attacks that have been going on," C.C. replied. "Pretty much everyone did, really, which was why when he turned up alive, they tried to get him to remove the Geass on the injured people. It was never his fault, though."

Suzaku told her the whole story—about Shestal's kidnapping, how he had wanted to enslave Lelouch's soul and had used Suzaku to draw him out, then what had happened later. He held back only the very graphic details, since he doubted Lelouch would want Nunnally to know how much he had suffered, but he did make it clear that Lelouch had been tortured at Cornelia's hands, and had originally been stuck dying over and over again before C.C. and Suzaku had intervened.

"We've finally learned that they've taken the capsule where they're keeping him to Antarctica. There was a Geass research facility there. Lelouch pretty much destroyed everything that had to do with it during his time as emperor, but the support garrison still exists, and nobody would've thought to look for the pod there of all places."

Technically, she had not taken Lelouch to the garrison at all. She had buried him in the middle of a fucking iceberg. It really had been a brilliant plan, to hide Lelouch deep beneath the ice, where nobody could ever find him. Too bad for Britannia that it had failed.

"You can get him out, right?" Nunnally asked. "You can get my brother out."

"Of course," C.C. replied. "That is the plan."

"We'll get Lelouch out, and then, we'll make them all pay," Suzaku added. He did not bother to hide what he now was from Nunnally, since by now, it was a moot point. "They deserve it, for what they've done to Lelouch."

Nunnally squeezed the handles of her wheelchair so hard her knuckles went white. "Yes," she said. "Yes, they do. They deserve that, and so much more. They are unworthy of the peace my brother wanted for them."

"I'm glad you agree, Nunnally," Suzaku said, taking her hand like he once had, so long ago. Finally, all the pieces were falling into place. Soon, his family would be back together, and they would build the world they always should've had.

In the meantime, they might need some help to accomplish that, and he knew exactly whom to turn to. Before they could go to Antarctica, they had another visit to make. A certain someone owed him a favor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry, fans of Kanon. Also, this story will obviously take an entirely different approach to the regular fates of people like Cornelia, Kallen etc. I actually love Cornelia and usually prefer writing her and Lelouch as loving sibs, but this will not happen here. For obvious reasons.


	9. Welcome Back, Lelouch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting closer to the release of Lelouch of the Resurrection. I feel like I'm behind with this since I wanted to finish it before the movie came out, but oh, well. It was obvious from the beginning that it wouldn't be canon anyway :) Enjoy!

_L.L._

"Lelouch, that tickles. Stop. Come on."

"Nope. Well, you are our captive. Deal with it."

"Besides, kitten, it's not like you're not enjoying it. Consider it revenge for your lack of support during the episode with Milly."

Lelouch watched the exchange between Suzu and his two youngest selves, frowning slightly. Lulu and Julius had cornered Suzaku and had decided to dress him up as a kitten. It was probably a method to distract him and get Suzaku's mind off of his numerous woes, and it did work, but it also made Lelouch consider his options.

He still wasn't sure what to do about this whole thing with his and Suzaku's fractured selves. Their split personalities had certainly come in handy throughout this terrible time. However, assuming that Suzaku's hopes would be fulfilled today—or at one point in the near future—he and C.C. might find Lelouch soon.

Suzaku might not have said it, but he was having trouble living with the other four personalities coexisting in his head. This strange form of MPD both he and Lelouch exhibited did not suit his character at all, as he hated himself far too much to ever accept any version of himself. In fact, the five Suzakus could not communicate with each other if one of them was in the world of C with Lelouch and the others were hanging around the real world, in Suzaku's body. Suzaku seemed to think that it was because he did not have a code, but Lelouch suspected it went deeper than that, and he knew he had to intervene in some way.

This, of course, would mean that he'd have to do something similar to himself, and that was an unpleasant thought. But he'd planned his own assassination once. This wasn't that different.

On the other hand, he owed it to both Suzaku's selves, and his own, to give them some kind of future. No matter what had created them, they had been helpful. And really, leaving aside his own personas, Lelouch did not have the heart to truly hurt any version of Suzaku, even for the wellbeing of the real one. What a problem.

A voice identical to his own startled him from his contemplations. "This is nice, isn't it? Seeing them like this. Brings to mind what we could've had. What we once did."

Lelouch nodded, stealing a glance at Emperor Lelouch. "He told us once, remember? Happiness is like glass." He shook his head, discarding his sentimental musings. It was not out of the question that his other selves would guess his other train of thought, and he didn't want that to happen. He might be the one with the code, and with all the control on this space, but that didn't mean they didn't have power.

"Anything from the surface?" Zerolouch asked, walking up to them.

"Not a blip. I've been keeping our body asleep as C.C. showed us. There's been no change in that either."

"I'm not sure if we should take that as encouragement or not," Emperor Lelouch replied.

Lelouch opened his mouth to provide an answer of his own, but before he could do so, the air in front of the shrine blurred, and Suzaku—the Lancelot version of him—appeared.

"Lelouch!" he said with a smile, visibly ignoring his other self. "Hi."

"Hello, my knight," Emperor Lelouch replied. "Any news?"

"Yes, actually. We've retrieved Nunnally, and we're on our way to getting your body. We have the information. They apparently took you to Antarctica."

Antarctica? Well, that was surprising. Lelouch wondered if that might have been the reason why he'd had an easier time controlling his body's code as of late. If his body had naturally fallen into some kind of hibernating state, he wouldn't have awakened every single time he died.

He doubted it was what Cornelia had intended at the time, but still, he was a little grateful, since it meant Suzaku had not been forced to go through that kind of torture for too long.

"Antarctica?" Julius repeated, echoing Lelouch's own thoughts. He had apparently abandoned his attempts to turn Suzu into a furry creature and had decided to join them upon noticing Lancelot's arrival. "That's cold, even for Cornelia."

Lelouch exchanged a pained look with his other selves. Was their sense of humor really this bad? Why did Julius always have to turn every single thing into a pun?

As expected, Lancelot chuckled, indulging Julius even if Lelouch himself found the joke cringe-worthy. "I suppose it is. If it helps, we have her with us. I'm sure we'll be able to find some way to repay the favor.

"We've also procured Kallen. They were all in a meeting when we sneaked in, so we had to take her along."

"You did well," Lelouch said, his mind already furiously adjusting the pieces of his chessboard. "We might be able to find some use for her yet."

Lancelot scowled at him. "Are you sure? I mean, it's not that I'm questioning your judgment, but she can't exactly be trusted. She knew exactly how Cornelia was treating Nunnally and did nothing."

It was kind of cute that Suzaku thought he could manipulate him by using Nunnally. Cute, but also ultimately unnecessary.

"Suzaku, you don't need to worry about Kallen ever taking your place by my side. That won't happen. However, she has her uses, and we've made people compliant to our desires before."

His plan was a bit of a risk, since it would involve trusting one of his other personas to not betray him. However, it might serve him well as a basis for the rest of his scheme, and as a testing ground.

As far as he could tell, the Geass of his previous selves was stuck in the form it had been at the time of the personality's creation. Granted, he had no way of actually verifying this theory until he had an actual body he could use, but if it was true, it would, in theory, mean he would have access to his past Absolute Obedience Geass.

He fully intended to make use of that to the utmost of his ability, at least until he had to remove his other selves, for Suzaku's sake. Which, he had no idea how to do, yet.

"Ah, I see what you mean," Emperor Lelouch said. "Yes, I do admit that is good idea. Having her on our side, even under Geass, would be useful, once everything is in order."

Lancelot still seemed a little disgruntled about it, so Lelouch set out to reassure him. Suzu was recruited to deliver the news that everything was all right to the other Suzakus, leaving Lancelot behind with Lelouch and his other selves.

Lancelot ended up sandwiched between Emperor Lelouch and Julius—who was never far from any of the Suzakus when they were present. Zerolouch and Lulu leaned against Suzaku's booted legs. Meanwhile, Lelouch himself passed a hand through Suzaku's soft hair, wondering how something so complicated as their current dynamic could be so easy, while their relationship before had been all over the place.

It wasn't really sexual, since they'd decided of common accord to hold off to do that until they found Lelouch's body. Still, there was something to be said about sharing simple moments with the people you loved—even when those people included four personalities of your own fractured psyche.

"This is nice," Lancelot whispered, much like Emperor Lelouch had said earlier. "I might fall asleep if you keep petting my hair, though."

"Go right ahead," Lelouch replied. "You all need to rest more."

"I agree," Emperor Lelouch murmured encouragingly. "Go on. Sleep, my knight."

Lancelot actually did fall asleep, which made Lelouch happy. He had already realized—more because the witch had told him than because of his own observations—that when they actually managed to get one of the Suzakus to do something restful in the world of C, it usually had an effect on the general state of wellbeing of Suzaku's body as a whole. Suzaku had been running himself ragged for Lelouch's sake even after Lelouch had managed to control the code and had no longer been forced to die over and over again. He desperately needed a break.

"I worry about him," Lulu said. "He tries much too hard."

"He's always been that way, since we were children, and they took advantage of it," Zerolouch provided darkly. "We're just going to have to make it better."

Better. How exactly were they going to do that?

He supposed he could attempt to seal off Suzaku's selves without sealing off his own personas, but at the same time, that didn't feel right either. Could he do something with this space here? Could he turn it into something different, some kind of cage for them?

It would be better than trying to remove them altogether, which, come to think of it, might not be a good idea to begin with, since it could break their minds altogether.

Lelouch had no idea how long they just sat there, with Lancelot, each of them deep in thought. Time never seemed to pass exactly the same way while he was here. Still, he was taken aback when, shortly after Suzu's disappearance, he felt his code strain respond to an unexpected outside stimulation.

He cried out, clutching his chest, struggling to breathe. Instantly, everybody shot into action, the other Lelouchs trying to help him, Lancelot already awake and in a panic.

"Lelouch!" he heard Lancelot say. "Lelouch!"

Lelouch wanted to reach out to him, to reassure him. He wanted to tell Suzaku that everything was going to be all right. He forced his eyes to open—when had he closed them?—intending to do just that.

It was not Lancelot he saw bending over him.

"That's it, Lelouch," Lelouch's own Suzaku, the oldest one, said. "Come to me. There you go."

It was just like the time he had first connected with Suzaku in the word of C, and it cleared his head like nothing ever could. Slowly, feeling began to return to Lelouch's limbs, and his teeth started chattering. It was so cold. Right. Antarctica.

Suzaku extracted him from... wherever he had been and took him in his arms. He was dressed in an suit that protected him from the chill, but he still felt so warm, almost impossibly so, and Lelouch instinctively curled against his heat. "Su-Suzaku?" he stammered. "What... Where..."

He himself wasn't sure what he wanted to ask. His mind was still working a little sluggishly. Suzaku quickly proceeded to reassure him. "It's all right. Everything is all right now. I have you. I'll tell you everything in a minute."

As Suzaku bundled him up carefully in a warm blanket, Lelouch finally managed to take in some of the details of his current location. He had just been removed from the pod, and they currently appeared to be in some kind of tunnel that seemed to have burned straight into the ice. Suzaku must've procured some kind of knightmare to extract him from his current location.

He hadn't been in a Britannian garrison or anything like that. Cornelia appeared to have literally buried his pod in the middle of an iceberg or something similar.

He found it a little ironic, but he really think that maybe Julius had been right in this one, and the whole Antarctica thing had been cold of Cornelia.

Suzaku rushed them both through the artificially crafted tunnel. A rope was waiting for them, and the two of them were pulled up to the surface, where they were greeted by a somewhat tearful Orange.

"Your Majesty, you have my deepest apologies for taking so long to find you."

Anya waved at him and snapped a photo. "Hello, Lelouch."

"Yes, hello," Lelouch managed to croak out. "And... It's all right, Orange. I don't blame you."

He should have perhaps found something better to tell them, but he was a little distracted by the sight of the Shinkiro—his Shinkiro—standing on the ice.

The machine wasn't exactly identical to what he remembered it to be, but that wasn't precisely surprising. It had been destroyed by Gino in the battle on the Damocles. He had never bothered to do anything with the pieces. As far as he knew, it had been completely disaffected. Apparently, that wasn't quite true.

As he watched, the mech opened, and C.C. emerged from inside. "Welcome back, Lelouch."

"C.C. How... The Shinkiro..."

"Oh, that was us, Your Majesty," a familiar female voice said to his right. Cecile Croomy emerged from the second vehicle present on the ice, a sheepish smile on her face. Lloyd Asplund followed in her wake, bundled up in several layers of clothing and mumbling something inaudible under his breath. "We were recruited to provide the means to retrieve you."

"By which he means that his ridiculous experiments finally managed to come in handy for something," Suzaku said darkly.

Lloyd hid behind Cecile, and Lelouch mentally sighed. Suzaku was still very sore about the fact that Cecile was the one who had sedated him the first time. They had long ago concluded that she couldn't have known the whole thing was not Lelouch's fault, but that didn't make Suzaku feel any better about it, or in any way inclined to set aside her actions.

He wondered what Lloyd had done to piss Suzaku off, since as far as he knew, his knight had not interacted with his former superior in quite some time.

Well, it was a good thing neither of them had actually participated in what had been done to Lelouch, because Lelouch could not imagine what Suzaku would have done to them had that happened.

"Earl Asplund illicitly rebuilt the Shinkiro during the time before Shestal's appearance," Suzaku explained. "I sort of knew about it, since it was around the time the Lancelot Zero unit was also produced."

Lelouch didn't ask Asplund what he had been planning to do with the machine. Knowing Lloyd, he had simply built it with no regard to the fact that without Lelouch, there might never be a pilot who would be able to utilize the frame to its full capabilities.

But all that was irrelevant now. They had bigger things to worry about.

Suzaku almost seemed to guess his thoughts, because he was already heading inside, carrying Lelouch into the transport. It was there that Lelouch finally found his little sister, and finally managed to say the words he had not been able to before he had died.

"Nunnally... I'm so sorry."

She smiled at him, tears flowing from the eyes she could now open. "It's all right, big brother. I know you meant well and you didn't intend any of this."

No, he hadn't, but he hadn't intended many things, and they had still come to pass. And like before, it would be his job to deal with them.

****

_C.C._

C.C. eyed her former contractor, wondering what was going through that brilliant mind of his. He was currently curled up in a blanket between his knight and his sister, looking like an imperial, human-sized cocoon. C.C. thought the analogy, and the current image, suited Lelouch's entire existence very well. She also knew better than to believe that his apparently harmless visage meant anything at all for the future of his enemies.

"So where do we go from here, Lelouch?" she asked. "Any plans?"

"Well, the first priority to take Nunnally back to Pendragon," Lelouch replied.

"But big brother..." Nunnally immediately started to protest.

"As much as I don't want us to be separated again, Britannia still needs a leader. And that person is you."

"I was never the leader you could've been," Nunnally whispered. "I only managed to make more mistakes and in the end, I could do nothing to keep or anyone else safe."

"Maybe. But everyone makes mistakes, and at one point, we just have to move forward. I am sorry about placing this burden on you again, Nunnally, but the fact remains that I am still the Demon Emperor, and that won't ever change."

Nunnally tightened her jaw, and C.C. knew Lelouch's little sister wasn't happy with the reminder of his plan. Nevertheless, Nunnally had always been quite similar to Lelouch where it counted so she predictably replied, "I understand, big brother. I'll go back to being an empress."

"Second matter on the list. Nunnally needs a guard, and it certainly can't be the Zero we have now." His expression darkened, and C.C. smiled to herself, knowing that Lelouch was truly Not Happy with Kallen's approach to the situation.

"I suppose I could do it," C.C. offered, somewhat reluctantly. She really didn't want to be Nunnally's guard, but she was perhaps the only one here qualified to act as Kallen's replacement. C.C. had pretended to be Zero plenty of times in the past, and Lelouch trusted her. She was immortal, immune to Geass and while she was not as physically strong as Suzaku, she did have knowledge of firearms and martial arts.

"I appreciate the offer, but I don't think that will be necessary. The fact that the current Zero isn't cooperative now doesn't mean we can't make her so. Orange, I will need you to undo the Geass I originally cast on Kallen. I have another use for her, and for Cornelia."

"Of course, My Liege."

"I assume we'll be pretending that you still haven't been found, right?" Nunnally asked. "What will you be doing throughout this time?"

Lelouch sighed. "Well, we can't exactly leave those people Shestal attacked in limbo, can we? Someone has to figure out what happened. It'll just have to be me and C.C.

"Obviously, Suzaku will be with us, and so will Orange. Cecile and Lloyd, you'll go Nunnally. We'll keep in contact, and you'll receive specialized orders when it becomes necessary. We have quite a mess on our hands, and once again, we need to fix it."

There were agreements all around, with even Lloyd displaying enthusiasm for the plan. Then again, now that Lelouch had been retrieved, Suzaku was no longer looking so murderous and had calmed down significantly. With luck, Lloyd would remember to have some degree of self-preservation until they went their separate ways and would not poke at Suzaku in an attempt to see how his Geass worked.

That really had not been Lloyd's best idea, although it had gotten him to cooperate very quickly.

The meeting broke off shortly after. Orange left to pilot the transport, whereas Cecile and Lloyd went to the other ship, the one they had used to bring in the Shinkiro. Lelouch asked Suzaku to take Nunnally to her quarters, to get some rest.

Suzaku didn't protest, even though he couldn't have missed the fact that Lelouch was being secretive again.

"What is it, Lelouch?" C.C. asked once Suzaku was gone.

"I need a favor, C.C. I need you to teach me how to build a cage in the world of C."

For a few seconds, C.C. didn't even understand what Lelouch meant. Then, she made the connection with Suzaku's absence and finally realized what he had in mind.

"It won't be easy," she warned him, "and I can give you no guarantees that it will work."

"We have no other choice, and we don't have much time at our disposal."

No they didn't. Suzaku's mental state was already fragile in the extreme. He had always been worse off mentally than Lelouch and experiencing Lelouch's torture had shattered him even further due to his own feelings of self-hatred. They had to do something to help him, to help all of them—all of Suzaku's selves, and Lelouch's.

Maybe, she thought, maybe there was still one way they could be happy. Suzaku and Lelouch had always been two parts of a whole, which was why everything had gone to hell when they had kept fighting one another. But if the parts—the now eight parts—were in the cage Lelouch proposed, and did not remember anything beyond each other... Would that be so bad?

At the end of the day, Lelouch and Suzaku had never been that different from the person she herself had been. The only thing they had truly wanted was a little happiness, a little love. C.C. could give them that.

"All right," she said. "We can do this Lelouch. But until we figure out every detail, we'll have to keep it from your knight."

"Yes, I know. He can't separate his consciousness from his other selves like I can. I'll tell him, later, once we're ready. I won't do this without his consent."

Of course he wouldn't. If he hadn't been forced to, Lelouch wouldn't have even cast his Geass on Suzaku, because that was the kind of person he'd always been with his loved ones.

"Welcome back, Lelouch," she said, just because she could.

Lelouch laughed lightly. "It's good to be back."


End file.
